Francesco Ruffini

Biography

Francesco Ruffini attended the Liceo Classico Carlo Botta in Ivrea. After teaching in Pavia and Genoa, he became a professor in Turin, first of History of Law, then of Ecclesiastical Law. Among his students there were , , Piero Gobetti (who was also his editor), and . He was dean of the University of Turin from 1910 to 1913.

He was appointed Senator of the Kingdom of Italy in 1914. A member of numerous academic bodies, including the Academia dei Lincei and the Istituto Lombardo Accademia di Scienze e Lettere, he was president of the from 1922 to 1928.

In 1925, he was among the signatories of the Manifesto of the Anti-Fascist Intellectuals, drafted by Benedetto Croce, who in 1927 dedicated to him the book . In 1928 Ruffini was attacked by a group of fascists inside the University of Turin, where he was teaching. Several students took his defense, including Alessandro Galante Garrone and Dante Livio Bianco. He died three years later in Turin.

Works Ruffini has been judged by academics as "a master of freedom" who was always interested in the relationship between state and church. Ruffini studied the figure of Cavour, of whom he was a great admirer.

In 1901, his analysis on the historical origins of the idea of religious freedom resulted in the writing of the work Religious Liberty. The following year, he edited the handbook Storia del diritto privato italiano, written by his professor and published posthumously.

Also significant is his writing The 'Cabale Italique' in seventeenth-century Geneva, in which Ruffini makes a brief analysis of the Italian lineage that emigrated and settled in Switzerland, and in particular in Geneva, following the Protestant Reform; among other things, there are extensive references to the history of Italy, with a closer look at Tuscany, in particular the city of Lucca.

Honors

Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus Order of the Crown of Italy