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 furthered his studies at Leipzig under E. Friedberg. In 1891 he became a *libero docente* in ecclesiastical law, then lecturer in the same subject at the University of Pavia (1892–93), and subsequently extraordinary professor at the University of Genoa (1893). From 1899 he held the chair of the history of Italian law at the University of Turin, moving in 1908 to the chair of ecclesiastical law in the same institution. He ceased teaching in 1932 after refusing to take the oath of allegiance to the Fascist regime. He served as president of the Academy of Sciences of Turin, senator of the Kingdom from 1914, minister of Public Education in 1916–17, and national fellow of the Accademia dei Lincei.
He was one of the leading figures in ecclesiastical law within Italian state universities, and his contribution was decisive in establishing the scientific and didactic autonomy of the discipline. Unlike other lay jurists, who confined the study of ecclesiastical law to aspects concerning state legislation, Ruffini consistently maintained the fundamental importance of canon law. He was recognized as its restorer in Italy after the long and gradual decline that culminated in the abolition of theological faculties in 1873, during which this discipline had fallen into neglect.
A distinctive feature of Ruffini’s thought was his historical conception of legal science, which he regarded as the only truly positive approach. This deep historical sensitivity led some to judge him more as a historian than as a positive jurist. Yet, as Croce rightly observed, “Ruffini was fundamentally a jurist, and in considering history his eye was always fixed on the formation of legal principles and institutions.” Among his principal legal works, besides his celebrated translation of Friedberg’s *Trattato di diritto ecclesiastico*, with extensive notes and appendices relating to Italy (Turin 1893), should be mentioned the essays on *Actio spoli* (ibid. 1889), *La buona fede in materia di prescrizione* (ibid. 1892), *Le tasse di rivendicazione e vincolo* (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* (ibid. 1908), *Il «ius exclusivae» 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 vast portion of his output is also devoted to problems of religious freedom in the history of the idea and its juridical implications (1901–24), as well as to questions concerning Church–State relations in Italy and France (1902–31). Notable outside the strictly juridical field are his studies on Socinianism and Jansenism, linked to works on Cavour (1912–31) and, though often debated in their conclusions, always valuable for their wealth of material and reconstruction of milieux, on the religious life of Manzoni (1925–31); in these works there is a particular reflection of the politico-religious conscience of Ruffini, informed by a doctrinal liberalism often tolerant in spirit.