Ruffo

RUFFO. - I. TOMMASO, cardinal, b. in Naples in 1663, d. in Rome on 16 Feb. 1753.

He completed his education at the Clementine College, showing a passion for the study of law, to devote himself to which he refused the post of internuncio in Brussels offered to him by Innocent XI. Vice-legate in Ravenna, nuncio in Tuscany, master of the chamber of Innocent XII and of Clement XI, who created him cardinal (17 May 1706). He governed as legate Ravenna, Ferrara, Bologna and again Ferrara, of which he was bishop from 1717 and which was erected into an archbishopric on his account. Bishop of Ostia and Velletri, in 1740 he was appointed vice-chancellor of Holy Church and secretary of the Holy Office. In the Conclave of 1740 his candidacy, which met with favor, was opposed by Austria and France.

Vittorio E. Giuntella

II. FABRIZIO, cardinal, b. in S. Lucido (Cosenza) on 16 Sept. 1744, d. in Naples on 13 Dec. 1827.

By his uncle Cardinal Tommaso he was entrusted for his early education to Giovanni Angelo Braschi, the future Pius VI. He completed his studies at the Clementine College. Having entered the prelature, he was admitted by Pius VI among the referendaries of the two Signatures and appointed cleric of the chamber (1781). Treasurer general of the Apostolic Chamber at the beginning of 1785, he applied himself to carrying out the reforming policy of the Pontiff; for this reason he worked to abolish the feudal barriers that hindered internal commerce, reorganized the customs at the borders of the State, protecting manufactures with appropriate fiscal provisions and facilitating the development of a merchant marine, the cultivation of hemp and cotton, the cloth and earthenware factories, the copper and iron wireworks, the working of leather. Certain measures, such as the abolition of productive restrictions, the consolidation of holdings and the granting in emphyteusis to the peasants of cameral properties, the limitation of the powers of cardinal legates, earned R. many self-interested hostilities, which grew with the worsening of the political and economic situation of the State after the outbreak of the Revolution in France. Pius VI, in order to remove him, created him cardinal deacon on 21 Feb. 1794 (in the Consistory of 26 Sept. 1791 he had reserved him in pectore). Having returned to Naples, he was appointed by the King intendant of Caserta, with the task of supervising the manufactures of the agricultural-industrial colony of S. Leucio. Pius VI strongly disapproved of the acceptance of these posts, and considered an usurpation the conferral on R. of the abbey of S. Sofia of Benevento, arbitrarily declared of royal patronage.

After the invasion of the French, Ferdinand IV, having taken refuge in Palermo, appointed him on 25 Jan. 1799 vicar general of the Kingdom, entrusting him with its reconquest. Having landed in Calabria, near the Punta del Pezzo (8 Feb. 1799), almost alone, without money and without weapons, he succeeded in gathering, if not in disciplining, the masses of the insurgents, formed after the dispersal of the regular army.

Inclined to moderation and clemency, notwithstanding the contrary urgings of Ferdinand and Maria Carolina, he strove to contain the ferocity and rapine of his bands, but did not succeed in preventing excesses, such as those that occurred at Crotone (22 March) and at Altamura (10 May). The success of the enterprise was aided by R.'s shrewd action to relieve the miserable conditions of the common people, so that almost everywhere the advance of the army of the Holy Faith was accompanied by popular uprising against the propertied classes, among which the Parthenopean Republic had found its greater support. Having penetrated into Naples (15 June), R. negotiated with the defenders of the forts an honorable capitulation, which the Sovereigns and Nelson refused to respect, thus adding to the bloody violence a merciless repression. R., who had never ceased to recommend a broad and generous pardon in order to found a lasting restoration on the pacification of minds, now in disgrace, in Nov. left Naples for the Conclave of Venice.

During the Napoleonic Empire, he was among the cardinals inclined to tolerate the religious policy of the Emperor. After the restoration, Pius VII entrusted him with the superintendence of the deputations of the Annona and the grascia and the prefecture of the Pontine reclamations (1821). He spent his last years in Naples, devoted to his beloved studies of military art, economics and agriculture.

Vittorio E. Giuntella