RUFFO, FABRIZIO (1744-1827), Neapolitan cardinal and politician, was born at San Lucido, Calabria, on Sept. 16, His father, Litterio Ruffo, was duke of Baranello, and his mother, Giustiniana, was a Colonna. Ruffo was placed by pope Pius VI. 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. In 1791 he was removed from the treasurership, but was created cardinal on Sept. 29, though he was not in orders. He never became a priest. Ruffo went to Naples, and, when in December 1798 the French troops advanced on Naples, he accompanied the royal family to Palermo. He was chosen to head a royalist move ment in Calabria, where his family exercised large feudal powers. He was named vicar-general on Jan. 25, On Feb. 8, 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.
Ruffo had no difficulty in upsetting the republican government established by the French and by June had advanced to Naples.
(See NAPLES and NELSON.) But he 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. 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 Dec. 13, 1827.
The account of Ruffo given in Colletta's History of Naples (English trans., Edinburgh, 1860) is biased. Cf. 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 sully vita del Cardinale Fabrizio Ruffo, by Domenico Sacchinelli (Naples, 1836). See also Baron von Helfert, Fabrizio Ruffo: Revolution and Gegen Revolution von Neapel (Vienna, 1882).