RUFFINI, FRANCESCO. - Jurist and historian, b. at Lessolo Canavese on 10 April 1863, d. at Turin on 29 March 1934. Having graduated in jurisprudence at Turin in 1886, he completed his studies at Leipzig in the school of E. Friedberg. In 1891 he became a libero docente in Ecclesiastical Law, then was appointed to the same subject at the University of Pavia (1892-93), and afterwards extraordinary professor at that of Genoa (1893). From 1899 he held the chair of history of Italian Law at the University of Turin, passing in 1908 to that of Ecclesiastical Law in the same Athenaeum. He ceased teaching in 1932, having refused to take the oath to the Fascist regime. He was president of the Academy of Sciences of Turin, senator of the Kingdom from 1914, minister of Public Education in 1916-17, and a national member of the Accademia dei Lincei.
He was one of the founders of ecclesiastical law in the Italian state universities, and his contribution was decisive for the affirmation of the scientific and didactic autonomy of the discipline. Unlike other lay jurists, who limited the study of ecclesiastical law to the part concerning state legislation, R. always maintained the fundamental importance of canon law. In the study of the latter he was recognized as the restorer in Italy, after the long and gradual decline that culminated in the abolition of the theological faculties in 1873, into which this discipline had fallen.
Characteristic of R.'s thought is the historical conception of legal science, which he considered the only truly positive one. This profound sensitivity of R. to history could lead some to judge him more a historian than a positive jurist. But, as Croce exactly wrote, «R. was fundamentally a jurist, and his eye was always directed to the formation of legal principles and institutions in his consideration of history». Among his principal juridical works, mention should be made, besides the celebrated translation of Friedberg's Treatise on Ecclesiastical Law, with extensive notes and appendices relating to Italy (Turin 1893), of the essays on the Actio spolii (ibid. 1889), La buona fede in materia di prescrizione (ibid. 1892), Le tasse di rivendicazione e svincolo (ibid. 1894), La rappresentanza giuridica delle parrocchie (ibid. 1896), Le decime contrattuali (ibid. 1902), La quota di concorso (ibid. 1904), Le spese di culto delle opere pie (ibid. 1908), Il vita esclusiva e nell'elezione del Pontefice (ibid. 1910); as well as the fundamental studies on la Classificazione delle persone giuridiche in Sinibaldo dei Fieschi e in C. F. Savigny (1898-1909), and other important themes of public and private law. A very large part of his output is then devoted to the problems of religious liberty in the history of the idea and in its juridical reflections (1901-24), as well as to questions inherent in the relations between Church and State in Italy and in France (1902-31). Widely known, outside the strictly juridical field, are his studies on Socinianism and on Jansenism, to which are connected the works on Cavour (1912-31) and those — much discussed in their conclusions, but always valuable for richness of materials and for the reconstruction of milieus — on the religious life of Manzoni (1925-31); works in which is particularly reflected the expression of R.'s politico-religious conscience, informed by a doctrinal liberalism that was often tolerant.
Bibliography6 works
Arnaldo Bertola