RUFFINI, FRANCESCO. — Jurist and historian, born at Lessolo Canavese on 10 April 1863, died at Turin on 29 March 1934. Having graduated in law at Turin in 1886, he pursued advanced studies at Leipzig under E. Friedberg. In 1891 he became a lecturer in ecclesiastical law, then was appointed to teach the same subject at the University of Pavia (1892–93), and subsequently became an extraordinary professor at that of Genoa (1893). From 1899 he held the chair of the history of Italian law at the University of Turin, transferring in 1908 to that of ecclesiastical law at the same university. He ceased teaching in 1932, having refused to swear allegiance to the Fascist regime. He was president of the Academy of Sciences of Turin, a senator of the Kingdom from 1914, minister of public instruction in 1916–17, and a national member of the Accademia dei Lincei.
He was one of the leading founders of ecclesiastical law in the Italian state universities, and his contribution was decisive in establishing the discipline’s scientific and didactic autonomy. Unlike other lay jurists, who restricted the study of ecclesiastical law to the part relating to state legislation, R. always maintained the fundamental importance of canon law. He was recognized as the restorer of the study of the latter 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 regarded as the only genuinely positive one. This profound sensitivity to history could lead some to judge him more a historian than a positive jurist. But, as Croce accurately wrote, «R. was fundamentally a jurist, and in considering history his eye was always directed to the formation of legal principles and institutions». Among his principal legal works, besides the celebrated translation of Friedberg’s Trattato di diritto ecclesiastico, with extensive notes and appendices concerning Italy (Turin 1893), mention should be made of the essays on 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 voto esclusivo 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 topics in public and private law. A very large part of his work was then devoted to the problems of religious freedom in the history of the idea and in its legal implications (1901–24), as well as to questions concerning relations between Church and State in Italy and France (1902–31). Widely known beyond the strictly legal field are his studies on Socinianism and Jansenism, to which are connected his works on Cavour (1912–31) and those—much debated in their conclusions, but always valuable for their wealth of material and their reconstruction of milieus—on Manzoni’s religious life (1925–31); works in which the expression of R.’s political and religious consciousness is particularly reflected, informed by a doctrinal liberalism that was often tolerant.