RUBEO (ROSSI), GIOVANNI BATTISTA. — Prior General of the Carmelites, b. in Ravenna on 4 October 1508, d. in Rome on 5 September 1578.
At the age of seventeen he entered the Order; after taking his degree in theology at Padua in 1547, he became a professor at the Sapienza, vicar general (1562), and then prior general (1564). During the canonical visitation of Spain and Portugal, he had occasion to meet at Avila (April 1567) s. Teresa di Gesù: he approved her spirit, encouraged her to continue the reform of the nuns according to the primitive Rule, and indeed authorized by «letters patent» (Barcelona, 16 August 1567) the foundation of two houses for «contemplative» Carmelites. But at the general Chapter of Piacenza (1575), which reconfirmed him in his office, severe decisions were taken against the «reformed», owing to the lack of precise information: the closure of the three convents of Andalusia (Granada, Seville, Peñuela), the return to their original convents of the «contemplatives» coming from the ancient observance, and the injunction to s. Teresa to choose a monastery from which she was not to leave again. Nevertheless, R. always retained esteem and veneration for the holy reformer, who speaks of him with admiration in the book of the Foundations (ch. 2).
Among his various works, printed or in manuscript, mention should be made of the edition of T. Netter (Waldensis)’s Doctrinale antiquitatum fidei Ecclesiae catholicae, prepared by R. «cum notis» (3 vols., Venice 1571).