RUGGERO II, king of SICILY. — Son of Roger I and Adelaide of Montferrat, born in 1095; after losing his father in 1101, he remained under his mother’s guardianship. With a vigorous temperament as a statesman, as soon as he came of age, Roger II began a policy of Mediterranean expansion, which he suspended when the death without heirs of the last Duke of Apulia, William, offered him the chance to succeed him, not without opposition.
Honorius II attempted to oppose the disruption of the balance among the three Norman states of Sicily, Apulia, and Capua, and placed himself at the head of a coalition that united the Normans of Capua and the Apulian lords, hostile to Roger: but after being defeated in battle, he was forced to grant him the investiture of the Duchy of Apulia. Once the recalcitrant Apulians were also subdued, Roger convened a diet at Melfi and issued a series of measures aimed at ensuring peace in his new domains. To prepare for his own promotion to royal dignity with the approval of his most loyal supporters, he adhered to the antipope Anacletus II and was solemnly crowned in Palermo on 25 December 1130. However, the bull that extended his royal authority from Sicily and Apulia to the Principality of Capua and its dependencies provoked against him a coalition led by Pope Innocent II, in which, alongside the princes of Capua, the Emperor of the East and that of the West entered in the name of their respective rights or claims, as did the maritime republics of Pisa and Venice, concerned about Norman Mediterranean expansion. After nine years of war and anarchy, Roger succeeded in isolating and defeating Innocent II, who recognized and confirmed his royal title (22 July 1139), while Robert of Capua abandoned the principality. Having thus unified southern Italy, Roger resumed his Mediterranean expansion program with a series of successful expeditions against North Africa, which he managed to occupy from Tripoli to Cape Bon, and with actions against the Byzantine Empire. He died in Palermo on 26 February 1145.
Roger styled himself as the successor of the Basileus and continued the tradition, styling himself “crowned by God,” even having himself represented in a mosaic receiving the crown directly from Christ Pantocrator. At the Diet of Ariano, he clearly expressed his concept of sovereignty in presenting to his nobles a series of laws known as the Assizes of Ariano, which provided for the reorganization of public and criminal law throughout the Kingdom.
Ruggieri, Michele (Pompilio). — Jesuit, missionary, born in Spinazzola (diocese of Venosa) in 1543, died in Salerno on 11 May 1607.
Having graduated in both civil and canon law in Naples, he entered the Order in Rome in 1572, changing his name from Pompilio to Michele; and by 1577 he had already gone with Fr. M. Ricci to India, landing in Goa in 1579. The following year he was assigned to the mission to be opened in China; he therefore went to Macao in 1579 to learn the Chinese language; in 1580 he entered Canton with some merchants, returning there three more times; on his last visit (1582) he was received with esteem and honors by the viceroy of Shao-ch’in, where on 1 January 1583 he was able to celebrate the first Mass and was later joined by Fr. Ricci after a few months. After some of his initiatives failed, in 1588 he was sent to Rome to prepare a papal embassy to Peking, but when this also failed, Ruggieri retired to Nola and then to Salerno, where he died.
In addition to several very important letters, in 1581 he composed a dialogue catechism, which was later translated into Chinese by some of his interpreters and published, after careful revision, in November 1584 under the title Vera esposizione del Signore del cielo.
Rugii. — A Germanic people, who, it seems, came from Scandinavia (Jordanes, Getica, 25) to settle on the coasts of western Prussia. They are mentioned by Tacitus (Germania, 43) and Ptolemy (III, 58), who do not, however, specify their precise locations.
Rugii. — A Germanic people, who, it seems, came from Scandinavia (Jordanes, Getica, 25) to settle