Giovanni Domenico Ruffini

Ruffini, Giovanni Domenico 

Born Sept. 20, 1807, in Genoa; died Nov. 3, 1881, in Taggia, Liguria. Italian writer and political figure.

Ruffini became a member of Young Italy in 1833 and, with his brother Giacopo, helped organize an uprising in Genoa. Condemned to death in absentia (1833), he fled Italy in 1836 and lived in Switzerland, England, and France. He took part in the Revolution of 1848–49 in Italy. In 1849 he was made Piedmont’s ambassador to France.

All of Ruffini’s novels were first published in English. His best work Lorenzo Benoni (1853; Italian edition, 1854; Russian translations, 1861, 1928), is about the last Carbonari of the 1830’s. Dr. Antonio (1855; Russian translation, 1861) sheds light on the events of 1848 in Italy. Ruffini also wrote the novels The Paragreens (1856), Lavinia (1860), and Vincenzo (1863).

REFERENCES

Potapova, Z. M. Russko-ital’ianskie literaturnye sviazi: Vtoraia polovina XIX v. Moscow, 1973.
Autori vari: G. Ruffini e i suoi tempi. Geneva, 1931.