FABRIZIO

RUFFO (1744-1827)  , Neapolitan cardinal and politician, was born at San Lucido in Calabria on the 16th of September 1744 . His father, Litterio Ruffo, was duke of Baranello, and his mother, Giustiniana, was of the family of Colonna . Fabrizio owed his education to his uncle, the cardinal Thomas Ruffo, then dean of the Sacred College . In early life be secured the favour of Giovanni Angelo Braschi di Cesera, who in 1775 became Pope Pius VI . Ruffo was placed by the pope among the chierici di camera—the clerks who formed the papal civil and financial service . He was later promoted to be treasurer-general, a post which carried with it the ministry of war . Ruffo's conduct in office was diversely judged . Colletta, the historian of Naples, speaks of him as corrupt, and Jomini repeats the charge . Ruffo's biographer, Sachinelli, says that he incurred hostility by restricting the feudal powers of some of the landowners in the papal states . In 1791 he was removed from the treasurership, but. was created cardinal on the 29th of September, though he was not in orders . He never became a priest . Ruffo went to Naples, where he was named administrator of the royal domain of Caserta, and received the abbey of S .

Sophia in Benevento in commendam . When in December 1798 the French troops advanced on Naples, Ruffo fled to Palermo with the royal family . He was chosen to head a royalist movement in Calabria, where his family, though impoverished by debt, exercised large feudal powers . He was named vicar-general on the 25th of January . 17oo- On the 8th of February he landed at La Cortona with a small following, and began to raise the so-called " army of the faith " in association with Fra Diavolo and other brigand leaders . Ruffo had no difficulty in upsetting the republican government established by the French, and by June had advanced to Naples (see NAPLES and NELSON) . The campaign has given rise to much controversy . Ruffo appears to have lost favour with the king by showing a tendency to spare the republicans . He resigned his vicar-generalship to the prince of Cassero, and during the second French conquest and the reigns of Joseph Bonaparte and Murat he lived quietly in Naples . Some notice was taken of him by Napoleon, but he never held an important post . After the restoration of the Bourbons he was received into favour . During the revolutionary troubles of 1822 he was consulted by the king, and was even in office for a very short time as a " loyalist " minister .

He died on the 13th of December 1827 . The

account of Ruffo given in Celletta's History of Naples (English translation, Edinburgh, 186o) must be taken with caution . Colletta was a violent liberal partisan, who wrote in exile, and largely from memory . He has been corrected by the Duca de Lauria, Intorno alla storia del Reame di Napoli di Pietro Colletta (Naples, 1877) . Ruffo's own side of the question is stated in Memorie Storiche sulla vita del Cardinale Fabrizio Ruffo, by Domenico Sacchinelli (Naples, 1836) . See also Fabrizio Ruffo: Revolution and Gegen-Revolution von Neapel, by Baron von' Helfert (Vienna, 1882) .