The Ruffini Family in Sardinia

The contents of this page were written by Giulio Laurenzo Ruffini. The preface and afterword were written in July 2017, and the main text written in November 2012.

Preface

Update to Ruffini Family in Sardinia, July 3, 2017

The following document was written in 2012, after we had completed our research on the Ruffini family in Sardinia. We thought, at the time that we could learn no more. Later, however, we hired a genealogist in Naples who obtained valuable information on our ancestor Domenico and his famous brother Girolamo.

The genealogist obtained church records that linked the Sardinian Ruffini to the Ruffini in Naples and back to the earliest Ruffini now known to us, Antonio, from the small village in Central Italy, Accumoli, in the 17th century.

Rather than going through the original document to make changes to reflect this new information, we decided to leave the original document intact, as a testament to our speculations at the time regarding the pre-Sardinian data.

So, the updated Ruffini Family in Sardinia, originally a single document written in 2012, now contains two additional brief segments, this updated introduction at the beginning, and at the end a brief description of the information obtained in Naples (along with the sad notice that further efforts to extend our knowledge beyond Antonio were demolished with the church in Accumoli in the earthquake that occurred there and in the surrounding region in 2016; the genealogist in Naples had offered to go there to continue the search several years ago but I declined the offer, to my regret).

Background

This document is meant to be the final and complete description of the findings of the research undertaken to learn the history of the Ruffini surname and line in Sardinia. It was undertaken in an effort to learn the history of the Ruffini; since it is not a Sard name, there was a family legend that the first Ruffini went to Sardinia from France during the Revolutionary War, and there was thus some hope of finding some historical evidence about this line of the family while the others (all of the maternal line – Meloni, Corrozzu, etc.) and all the rest of the paternal line (Lai, Ledda, Culeddu) were so far as could be discerned, anonymous, obscure Sards about which nothing more than dates and places of births, marriages, and deaths could be learned.

We, mainly Nino, had done, in the United States, a considerable amount of research of the Italian civil records available through the Mormons. This information was limited to civil Italian records which only went back to the time of unification. Church records went back much farther but one had to go back there to each individual parish (except for Sassari, where the archives for all five historical parishes were centrally located). Through the civil records we learned a great deal about our Ozieri ancestors on all sides and learned that there were also Nule Ruffini but we had not established a relationship.

Then, doing internet searches, we discovered Girolamo Ruffino, from several sites that were based on brief accounts serving as tourist notices and from the comune of Budduso’. We learned that he was a painter of church paintings in Sardinia in the 18th century, of Neapolitan origin. Then we learned from a website of a book of art history that mentioned him further, attesting to what we knew, the paintings at Sant’Antonio Abate, and saying that nothing further was known about him. We heard from Tomaso Tuccone, bibliotecario of Budduso’, who had some valuable information, which led us at that time to think that we knew more about the painter than anybody else.

This was changed when we established contact with Mario Tola through the organization of Sard nobles, as I had thought that the painter might have painted portraits of the rich and nobles of Sassari and when I read in the Wall Street Journal of an organization of European nobles, I went online and obtained information about the organization of Sard nobles, e-mailed them, and the president, Enrico Aymerich, passed on my request to Tola, who was the vice president, lived in Sassari, and had done his own study of Ruffino.

Also Dott. Cau told me about a book by Marisa Porcu Gaias, a history of 17th and 18th century art in Sassari, I got it, there were several references to Ruffino and mentioned that he was active in commerce. I contacted her and she provided me with a wealth of information from notary acts, much of it obtained from Walter Schoeneberger, who later himself directly provided me with more such information.

It became clear that in fact: a considerable amount was known about Girolamo, even if only by a few people who had not published, and that he was quite an interesting fellow, really quite remarkable.

In addition to our research from home, through the internet (looking at the Sard enciclopedia, websites of comuni) and correspondence with people like Cau, Porcu Gaias, Tuccone, and Tola), we then made three trips to Sardinia to look at the archives.

The first was in March of 2011, the second in May of 2012, the third in September-October of 2012. In March of 2011 Nino and I explored the church archives in Ozieri and Nule, where we were able to show that the Ozieri Ruffini came from Nule (Giuseppe Salvatore, and his father Luigi); that Luigi was the son of a Girolamo Ruffino, who was married in 1790 in Nule to a woman named Maria Masala, he had been living in Benetutti at the time, was from Sassari, as were his parents, Domenico Ruffino and Maria Francesca Piana, and that he was a Mastru, of what we didn’t know, but I suspected muratore, a master mason (this proved to be true).

I thought that this Domenico Ruffino was the son of the painter Girolamo. This proved to be unlikely when we learned that Girolamo had not married until 1761, at which time he was not described as being a widower. Domenico was also not an heir of Girolamo, as were his two children from that marriage in 1761.

He was undoubtedly related, however: he named his children Girolamo and Nicoleta. We learned from Padre Marco Ardu, of the convent of Santa Maria di Betlem, Sassari, who had done research on deaths, that in 1752 Domenico and Maria Francesca buried a year old daughter, Nicoleta, at San Nicola church. We also learned from the atto di matrimonio of Girolamo and his wife in 1761, and in the notary act for that marriage, that his parents were Santo Ruffino and Nicoleta Vuovolo (or Ovolo) of Naples. That is too much of a coincidence, unless one is to believe that Domenico named his children after Girolamo, who was unrelated, but admired by him or for some other reason. Later, through Walter Schoeneberger, we also learned that Domenico was also a painter, as attested to in a notary act describing the inventory of belongings, debits and credits, of a deceased merchant, to whom Domenico, described as a pintor, owed money.

In May of 2012 we learned a great deal, from Porcu Gaias, Schoeneberger, and through our efforts at the Archivio di Stato, Sassari, with the help of Maria Franca Canu. This was mainly about my uncle Luigi Ruffini, a servant shepherd who ran afoul of the law in 1909, 1911, and 1912, accused of theft by his employer, also a shepherd. We also obtained information on vineyards, land bought and sold by Nulese and Ozierese Ruffini.

We also learned something new, perhaps, about our ancestor Maria Francesca Piana, although inconclusive because we obtained information about two people who could be our ancestor. One was a death record of a Maria Piana, 1790, age about 60, parents Salvatore Piana and Maddalena Grassa. The other was a confirmation record of a Maria Francesca Piana, 1740, parents Lorenzo Piana and Clara Scarella. Either could be our ancestor. I lean toward Maria Francesca as it makes sense and it does give her full name, while the other does not, although it is reasonable to assume that in 1740 her full name would have been known by the declarant while in 1790 not so by the person, perhaps a neighbor, giving the information.

We learned nothing new about Domenico. We assumed he was born in Naples, so did not search for birth records. We looked for marriage records, both church and notary acts; we searched for death records, nothing. There was no mention of him at all in any notary acts that we pulled up in May with Maria Franca, nor later in the searches of a hired research assistant. He was and remains truly a man of mystery (we did discover two daughters, see below, in September-October, 2012).

An intriguing but likely false or at least unproveable, possibility was provided by Tola when he learned that my ancestor was named Domenico. He said that there was a painter, otherwise known only as Mestre Domingo, Napoletano, who had painted, around the middle of the 18th century, at the church of Bonaria in Cagliari, a church and convent operated by the Mercedarians, who were also active in Sassari at the time. I learned independently that he had been mentioned in Spanu (a Sard art historian), but as having painted a painting there in 1780. That may have been the source for Tola also and he may have gotten the dates wrong.

I contacted Roberto Porru’, archivist in Cagliari, who is the expert on the archives of this convent, which was taken over by the state so that its files are all in the state archives, who was very helpful and e-mailed me a copy of the page. My research assistant since talked to him. I wanted her to look at all of the pages for the period but she said that Porru’ told her that the files listed people only by their given names (that is first names), but that might still be worth pursuing, especially now that we know that Domenico was also a painter. It is more reasonable to hope that there was only one painter from Naples named Domenico at that time in Sardinia.

I learned from Padre Ardu that the confraternity of Mercedarians still existed in Sassari and that the priore owned a bookstore by the cathedral and I spoke to him. He knew nothing about any Ruffini, but he did show me a newspaper article, a coincidence, but it could show a remarkable continuation of Ruffini involvement in the Mercedarians. In 1909 during a procession, a statue caught on fire and a witness, as quoted in La Nuova Sardegna, was a participant, Vincenzo Ruffino. Is it possible that as late as 1909 a Ruffini was associated with the Mercedarians because an ancestor, Domenico, had been?

In September-October of 2012 we went to the Archivio Diocesano and discovered two daughters of Domenico and Maria Francesca, born in 1752 and 1756. Of note is that the first was born one month after Nicoleta’s death, and one of her names was Nicoleta. Also, she had a nobleman, Don Joseph Quesada, as godfather, a big deal. This could mean that Domenico had painted portraits for the family. I contacted Don Enrico Aymerich and got an e-mail address for Cristiano Quesada, identified on the internet as a genealogist who has studied the family, and e-mailed him, but received no answer.

That is all we know about Domenico, these are the attestations: the first we obtained was from the 1790 atto di matrimonio at Nule, showing he was the father of Girolamo and the husband of Maria Francesca Piana; then that he and Maria Francesca were the parents of the year old Nicoleta who died in 1752; then that he was a painter, a big deal, who appeared as a debtor to a merchant in a notary act for 1752; then that he and Maria Francesca Piana were the parents of the two girls born in 1752 and 1754. That is all that we can discover about Domenico.

In September-October, 2012, we also went to the church archives in Benetutti and Nule. At Benetutti I looked for registri that might show that Domenico had done work for the church, but found nothing. The registri only went to a certain point so if Domenico or Girolamo had been listed, the documents no longer exist. There were registri for a number of other churches and confraternities, but it would take some time to go through them and I did not do so. There were no records of family censuses, matricole, or stato delle anime, so there was nothing found in Benetutti (although, of course, my research assistant found a notary act that showed that Girolamo, described as a mastro albanil, had bought two houses there in 1779).

At Nule we made two major discoveries:

I looked at the Nulese atti di morte from 1790 to 1805, hoping to find the death record of Domenico, hoping that since he had not died in Sassari (or if so the document so attesting was lost) he had to die somewhere else and since somewhere else was too large a place to search, one could only hope to search possible places which had some link to him, such as the place where his son was living, that is Nule. I did in fact discover two important items in those death records, but not the death of Domenico.

The first, in December of 1791, was the death of a son of Girolamo and Maria, a replay in a way, of the sad event that had befallen Girolamo’s parents with Nicoleta in 1752.

The second was quite spectacular and certainly unsuspected. Close to the end of the volume that contained the death records, pretty much as my eyes were glazing over since I did not expect to find Domenico’s death recorded as late as 1804, I discovered a really extraordinary document, which will be described in its proper chronological place: the announcement of the death of Girolamo himself.

This section has been the background of the Ruffini Family Saga (as it pertains to Sardinia, and briefly to its beginnings in Naples), the story of how the research has been conducted and the major lines of development. What follows is an account of the people we have discovered, that is the Ruffini of each generation, their spouses and children, and whatever events or facts we have discovered to be associated with them.

The account is going to be highly skewed in a number of ways. First of all we know a great deal about Girolamo the painter, at least we do in the number of occasions or events, notary acts, mentions here and there, that we have discovered, even if not in the depth or detail or richness of each event. Together the number of these bits of data allows us to get a pretty good idea of a remarkable if puzzling man. We lack details for each event but we know about a lot of such events and often the details could be filled in by imagination or if Marisa Porcu Gaias, with a wide and deep knowledge of Sassari, were to write a monograph on him, by context.

So, there will be a lot about Girolamo and very little, for example, about Domenico, who I think is his brother, but we don’t even know that.

Another kind of skewing is that I am interested, in this document as I have been largely in the research, in our line only, not only of the Ruffini as opposed to the Lai, Meloni, etc., but within the Ruffini only the line from which we are directly descended, which is:

Domenico Ruffino (presumably from Naples, residing in Sassari), Girolamo Ruffino (born in Sassari, residing in Benetutti and Nule), Luigi Ruffini, born in Nule, residing in Ozieri and Nule, Giuseppe Salvatore, born in Nule, residing in Ozieri, Giommaria Ruffini, born and residing in Ozieri, possibly died in Nughedu, Giovanni Ruffini, born in Ozieri, residing in the United States, Giulio Ruffini, born and residing in the United States, Giovanni Ruffini, born and residing in the United States.

One sees, if nothing else, that the Ruffini do not stay in one place very long. Also, what one imagines, I don’t know to what degree it is so, is Ruffini males coming and going and marrying Sard women, fathering Sard, to one degree or another, children, and then moving on, leaving very little trace of themselves, what is left, and not to our eyes, because anonymous, hidden, is the Sard ground, if that can be the right term.

Anyway here is the story, through the cast of characters in a chronological order, beginning, though, with the Naples Background.

Seventeenth Century Naples

Naples during the 17th century (as well as earlier and later, of course) was a center of a rich and thriving art world. Caravaggio was active there at the beginning of the century and Luca Giordano during most of the rest of it. Naples was part of the vast Spanish Empire, as was Sardinia, and artists moved back and forth between Naples and Spain, often through Sardinia. Neapolitan artists were much sought after in Sardinia and contributed enormously to Sardinian sacred art, through paintings and wooden sculpture and golden finishing.

We know that Girolamo the painter’s parents were from Naples, Santo Ruffino and Nicoleta Vuovolo. I assume he was born early in the 1700’s. He died, apparently, in 1775, and reliably painted a painting in Sant’Antonio Abate in the 1730’s, and possibly another painting a few years earlier. He presumably went to Sassari some time in the 1720’s at a young age. He could have been born as early as 1700 and as late as 1710, closer, I think, to 1700.

So, his parents lived in 17th century Naples. I assume that they were part of the very rich art world of Naples at that time. Vuovolo is itself an artistic or architectural term, and Walter Schoeneberger suggested that it was a nickname for an artist who specialized in that particular feature or for some other reason was associated with it, and as often happened, the nickname became in time the surname. So Nicoleta Vuovolo came from an artistic background.

Vuovolo was also the surname of another mother of an artist:

Paolo Antonio Onofrio Di Falco (see Mario Alberto Pavone, title as shown here, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Volume 39 (1991), http://treccani.it/enciclopedia/di-falco-paolo-onofrio-(Dizionario-Biografico) (also has a good bibliography of art world for this period)

According to Pavone, DiFalco was born in Naples in 1674, baptized in the parish of S. Arcangelo degli armieri (which could be some place to start a search), May 14 of that year. His parents were Nicola DiFalco and Lucrezia Vuovolo.

DiFalco became a priest and belonged to the school of the famous Neapolitan painter Francesco Solimena, who had a workshop. DiFalco painted portraits as well as church paintings in Naples and surrounding areas.

Solimena (1657-1747) was a big name, formed a school, very active, and had a wide following and workshop, which could have been the training ground for Girolamo himself.

I am convinced that Nicoleta, the mother of Girolamo Ruffino, was related, perhaps as sister, to Lucrezia. There is an age disparity but not greater than often in fact occurred. DiFalco was born in 1674 and Girolamo possibly as early as 1700, a 25-26 year disparity, but not too wide a spread for two sisters widely separated in age, one giving birth at an early age, the other in a late age. Or they could be cousins or aunt and niece. But it is reasonable to posit a close relationship. Vuovolo was not a common name, surely, and they both gave birth to artists!

Perhaps as Girolamo was growing up his mother brought him to her relative (nephew?) DiFalco, already established as a painter, to be apprenticed with him directly and/or to introduce him to the workshop of Solimena. Girolamo would have been taught his trade in Naples and then, perhaps because there were too many painters in Naples or through networks and contacts, perhaps through Antonio Colli, or maybe as a member (if he was, I don’t know, I am just thinking of kinds of possibilities) of the confraternity of the Servites, who had the church of Sant’Antonio Abate, where he painted his first known paintings, he ended up in Sassari.

Girolamo Ruffino, the Painter

Sources:

The original, primary sources of information on Girolamo Ruffino, the painter (based on these a number of people have published books or articles, which will be discussed below):

Atti Notarili, notary acts. In the 18th century and for centuries before and well into the 19th century, atti notarili were very important documents for most Italians and are a valuable source of information for historians and geneologists. They are legal, official documents, undertaken by parties of individuals or groups, who appear before a notary public to officially declare that they are undertaking some sort of activity, a contract to perform work of some kind, a dowry for a marriage, purchase or sale of land or houses, etc. In Sardinia throughout the 18th century, as in previous centuries, these atti notarili were written in Spanish. Even though the Spaniards no longer controlled Sardinia after 1720, Spanish remained the language of educated people and was still used in official documents. There are many atti notarili attesting to activities of one kind or another for Girolamo Ruffino (none for Domenico, only one so far for Domenico’s son Girolamo, and a few for later descendants). This was mainly because Girolamo was not only a painter but a man of affairs, a commerciante, and prosperous enough to buy and sell various properties. These atti notarili are contained at the Archivio di Stato, Sassari, and have been compiled by Marisa Porcu Gaias and Walter Schoeneberger.

Church Administrative Records, registri, records kept by individual churces and convents on a daily basis to record various transactions, expenses, income, etc. Registri are the main source for knowledge that Girolamo, or other painters, painted something for a given church. Also at times he and other painters identified themselves and the dates on the paintings themselves. These church administrative records were resources for information on Girolamo the Painter, but not for anybody else in this family history (unless it is shown that Mestre Domingo, Napoletano, is also Domenico Ruffino, see below in the section on Domenico).

Quinque Libri, Latin for five books, are the parish records recording baptisms, confirmations, marriages, deaths, and periodic household censuses. These are valuable sources of information for historians and genealogists, but they are often missing completely for any given parish, or there may be huge or tiny, but significant gaps. They are found at the parish level, which makes access very problematic as one has to go to each church and obtain permission from each pastor, and the records may be in bad shape if they are present at all. In our family history we are concerned with the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, and often these documents are difficult to read for several reasons. They are written in Latin.

In addition to these primary, original sources of information, for Girolamo the painter we also have the private, individual identification of paintings by an art historian (Tola); mention of him in Enrico Costa’s history of Sassari; and mention of him in a book published in 1776 by a scholar concerning scientific methods he was advocating for improving agriculture in Sardinia, commending Girolamo for the use of modern, scientific methods in his vineyards.

Published Sources:

Maria Grazia Scano, Pittura e scultura del ‘600 e del ‘700, Ilisse, Nuoro, 1991

Aldo Sari, Chiese e Arte Sacra in Sardegna, Arcidiocesi di Sassari, Volume VI, Tomo I, Zonza Editori, Cagliari, 2003

Mario Tola, 2011, Personal Communication by e-mail

Marisa Porcu Gaias, Sassari, Storia architettonica e urbanistica dalle origini al ‘600, Ilisso, Nuoro, 1996

Enrico Costa, Sassari, Gallizzi, Sassari, 1992

Tomaso Tuccone, personal communications and: G. Ruffino, pittore napoletano che opero’ in paese nel 1736-37, Parish Newspaper, Budduso’, Sunday, December 25, 2011

There are various other published sources, article in Sard Encyclopedia, various comune websites, websites aimed at tourists advertizing sites to see, mention in a book I have not been able to obtain by Monsignor Amadu and one by R. Manconi. These all presumably rely on the original primary sources listed above.

Paintings: The above secondary sources describe at least 22 church paintings; the restoration for the Sassari city council of the king’s portrait; the painting of the king’s coat of arms for the Sassari city council; the commission by the city council of Sassari to prepare a plan for the Port of Porto Torres; a portrait of Bishop Casanova when he was Bishop of Alghero, and again when he was Archbishop of Sassari. There is a catalog of his work at the Soprintendenza in Sassari, which I was not able to visit.

The church paintings are found in a wide area: five at Budduso’, one in the cathedral of Oristano, several only in Sassari, several in Ossi, Florinas, and other closeby towns, a number in various places of the Logudoro. I don’t know whether he had to actually go to all these sites to do the paintings, I think he did most of the time. Travel was difficult in those days.

There are numerous atti notarili, compiled by Marisa Porcu Gaias and Walter Schoeneberger. Lists of these compiled atti, often with brief descriptions, have been given to me. I have also obtained photocopies of the actual atti notarili for many of these from the Archivio di Stato.

All of the following information on Girolamo pertaining to artistic works comes from the secondary sources and originally presumably from the church registri. Atti notarili provide most of the sources for the other activities recounted.

Girolamo in Sassari

I am assuming that Girolamo was born in Naples some time between 1700 and 1710 at the absolute latest, more likely no later than 1705, perhaps before 1700, but these are only guesses. Scano, see below, has him painting at Sant’Antonio Abate at the beginning of the church itself, some time between 1701 and 1707 with no convincing evidence. Sari, with no evidence that I can see, has him doing that same painting some time before 1729. Since the next known painting is in 1734 and for other reasons, it is safe to discount Scano and assume that if he painted some time before 1729 (let us say 1728) he would have been a young, but reasonably established painter in Naples when he arrived in Sassari, or younger, not yet established in Naples, but with excellent contacts there and in Sassari, enabling him to acquire the commission for the painting at St. Antonio Abate.

I am assuming he was born into an artistic milieu, had a relative who was well established as a painter, with excellent contacts with Solimena and with his school, himself showed talent as an apprentice either directly to Di Falco or to Solimena or one of his followers, distinguished himself in Naples or at least showed promise there, and through the artistic networks that connected Spain, Sardinia, and Naples, embarked upon either what he assumed would be a life long career in Sardinia, or upon a specific commission or set of commissions with the intention of perhaps returning or moving on, but in fact resulted in a life long career in Sardinia as a painter and also as an entrepreneur in several fields. He was clearly a success in those fields, while Domenico, who I presume was his younger brother, accompanying him as a young apprentice (born perhaps around 1720), or following him later, seemingly was less successful as a painter and so far as we know failed to distinguish himself in any other manner. (It is also possible, for some reason a possibility only now considered more than fleetingly, that Domenico was Girolamo’s illegitimate son, but one wonders if in that case he would have been presented to baptism by him and given his surname – I don’t think that was usual but I guess this should be pursued.)

I think that in Naples Girolamo would have spoken Neapolitan and Spanish. In Sassari when he arrived, say around 1725-1728, Sardinia would have recently come under the domination of the Piedmontese, the House of Savoy, but had been under Spanish domination prior to 1720 for hundreds of years. Spanish was still the lingua franca, still the language of every day official life, the language of the notaries, even the language Sards used to write to the Savoy government for many years! When not using Latin the Church used Spanish. The Sassari city council transacted its official business in Sard, but the Sassaresi themselves among themselves spoke Sassarese, which was different from Logudorese Sard, having originated in the Italian of the Pisans and Genoese who dominated Sassari for centuries prior to the Spaniards, mixed with Corsican, Spanish and Sard, and they had to know Sard to communicate with surrounding townspeople. Many people residing, even for long periods, in Sassari, were continental Italians, Genoese, Pisans, Piedmontese by now, also Corsicans. I suspect that Girolamo would have communicated with people in Spanish and quickly learned Sassarese as well.

The sources throughout Girolamo’s career attest to his involvement with a large variety of colleagues. He quickly and easily was enmeshed and immersed in a series of networks, initiated in Naples and elaborated in Sardinia, both in the artistic-architectural, and in the commercial-financial worlds. He was a collaborator, active, talented, and ambitious, and his activity, talents and ambitions seem to have paid off, but one wonders, see below, why his ambitions did not include or lead to a good marriage until late in life (1761). But that is another matter for now.

Two noted Sard art historians have written about Girolamo’s first thought to be known painting, Scano and Sari. That painting is “La Vergine e i Sette Fondatori dell’Ordine dei Serviti,”, the Virgin and the Seven Founders of the Order of Servites, a painting that forms part of the retablo, or large altar piece on the back wall of the main altar (a retablo being a Spanish word for large wooden artwork structure, often gold overlaid, with individual paintings within). This painting is oil on canvas, in the church Sant’Antonio Abate, in Sassari. The altar piece includes the coat of arms of Bishop (of Bosa, but about to become Archbishop of Sassari) Sotgia Serra, who commissioned the church itself (he was a member of the Order of Servites) and Scano says that it is therefore datable to between his death in 1701 and 1707, the year of the conclusion of the work in the church.

She also states in discussing the other painting by him in the church, dated at 1734, that, in addition to the date of this painting, we have other news of him from 1737 to 1743, and, also furthermore: “but his presence in Sassari can be traced back to, perhaps, the beginning of the 1700’s if one accepts his intervention in the major altar piece of the Church of St. Antonio Abate” (I dispute this, the coat of arms could have been put up any time after the Bishop’s death and the completion of the church, and the retablo and painting themselves could have been completed well after the completion of the church, as claimed by Sari. The next known painting by Girolamo, also for St. Antonio Abate, was in 1734, a very long time later than 1701-1707, and a long time of inactivity not demonstrated later in his career.)

The altar piece was designed by the Genoese Bartolomeo Augusto, but Scano believes that this particular painting is better than Augusto can do and ascribes it instead to Girolamo, especially as compared to the other known painting in the church by Girolamo and to a painting by Augusto with the same subject (“La Madonna con i Santi Fondatori dell’Ordine dei Serviti,” in the same church, dated 1725). Sari agrees with this.

Sari, in his book, written later than Scano, cites Scano and does not dispute her, but offers other information, some of it seemingly at variance. Sari says that within the first 30 years of the century, the merchant Pietro Jaques, a member of the confraternity of the Servants of Mary and son of the French viceconsul for Sassari, commissioned the construction of the large wooden altar piece, the wooden sculptural work to be done by the Sassarese sculptors Giovanni Antonio Contena and Juan Domingo Mariotu, while the pictorial panels were assigned to the Neapolitan Girolamo Ruffino (page 80).

On pages 159-163 Sari discusses the retablo again, saying it was by a design of the Genoese Bartolomeo Augusto, and executed by the Sassarese sculptors Giovanni Antonio Contena and Juan Domingo Mariotu, “before 1729” (without giving a reason for stating that it was before 1729), and that it was commissioned by Pedro (now) Jaques, and “ as hypothesized by Maria Grazia Scano,” by Sotgia Serra, whose coat of arms is on the altar. He goes on to say that in that retablo there were two large canvases one of the Virgin with the seven founders of the Order of Servites and, then, that the pictorial part of the altar piece, according to Scano, was not attributable to Augusto but, at least in part, to the Neapolitan Girolamo Ruffino.

So, Sari seems to put the retablo later (before 1729) and assigns the commision to Jaques, while noting that Scano places it earlier and ascribes the commission to Sotgia Serra, and she precisely makes the claim for an earlier date because the bishop’s coat of arms adorns the retablo and he died in 1701. Yet, the bishop paid for and commissioned the whole rebuilding of the church, so it does not surprise that his coat of arms would be placed on the grand altarpiece when it was created, but it need not have been created while he was still alive (which she doesn’t even claim, only between 1701 and 1707, but if it was created even one year after he died, why not 20 years later?) The outer church was finished by 1707 but not all of the internal art need have been created for some time. Furthermore, Augusto designed the piece, he painted something for the church in 1725, and if the piece was finished by 1707 that represents a long period of time devoted to the church, while a design and execution closer to his painting of the other work in 1725 makes more sense. It seems that Scano relies on the earlier date only because of the coat of arms of the deceased bishop but it is reasonable to believe that when the work was completed, perhaps twenty or more years after his death, the coat of arms was then placed there in his honor.

From now on Girolamo’s career may be described by decades, the 1730’s, 1740’s, 1750’s, 1760’s, and 1770’s, and finally we can close his section of the family saga by discussing his children.

After the painting of the Virgin and the Seven Founders of the Order of Servites, presumably some time around 1728 (see Sari), his next attested painting, and first attested activity, was a painting in the retablo of San Giuseppe of the parish church of Ossi, in 1733. He later painted other works in Ossi, which is very close to Sassari, and it is possible that if the absence from the Sassari church records of Domenico indicates not a loss of Sassari records but rather that those acts (marriage, baptisms of children, death) occurred elsewhere, Ossi might be a logical candidate (as had Benetutti)

In 1734 Girolamo painted “Comunione di Santa Giuliana,” oil on canvas, in a side chapel at Sant’Antonio Abate, Sassari. This painting was signed by him, as follows: HIERONIMUS RUFFINUS NEA. FEC. SACERI MDCCXXXIV, which is Latin for Girolamo Ruffino, Neapolitan, did this, Sassari, 1734.

Also in 1734, or 1736, he painted, in faraway Budduso’ (east of Ozieri and north of Nule) three paintings for the church of San Quirico, San Nicola, San Vincenzo, and Sant’Andrea. The latter has a signature and date on it: Hieronimus Ruffinus neapol fecit 1734 expensis hered. Ioanis Alaciadu (Porcu Gaias, citing G. Spano Emendamenti e aggiunte all’itinerario dell’Isola di Sardegna del Conte Alberto della Marmora, Cagliari, 1874, p. 247), but, according to Tuccone: in 1736 the Allazzadu family of Budduso’ commissioned him to do the painting, which is signed as following: Hieronimus Ruffinus Nea fec MDCCXXXVI. Porcu Gaias also places the two paintings by him in the parish church of Sant’Anastasia, Budduso’, San Giovanni Battista and the Purissima (Immaculate Conception) at this time with the same citation as source, while articles in the website of the comune of Budduso’ and the Enciclopedia Sarda give the date of 1754 for these two paintings. In any case he certainly did five paintings in two churches of Budduso’.

Some time in 1734 or 1735, according to Porcu Gaias, Girolamo collaborated with “i maestri” Antonio Sogia and Ventura Sanna, to furnish wood and designs and canvases “delle edicolette delle cimase “ of the retabli of San Francesco, dei Re Magi, of Sant’Antonio, delle Anime and San Giuseppe, for the parish church of San Paolo in the town not far from Sassari of Codrongianos. Edicolette (edicola means newstand or kiosk), can mean tabernacle or pavilion, and cimasa is an architectural term the Italian-English dictionary translates unhelpfully as finial or ogee. Then she adds that the paintings represented two Jesuit saints (one of whom was San Francesco Saverio), the Madonna with Child, San Raimondo Nonnato, San Giovanni Battista e Santo Eremita. So it is quite unclear exactly what was done here, but likely that Girolamo and the other two contributed materials and added paintings to already existing retabli. This is noteworthy as are other cases of the collaborative nature of some of these undertakings. There are several instances when others are named as working with him, but the name of Domenico does not appear.

Porcu Gaias is also our informant for the information that in 1735 Girolamo obtains or possesses a “procura,” which means proxy or power of attorney, for his father, Santo Rufino, “per ratificare uno strumento di concordia e transazione.” Ratificare means to ratify, confirm, or affirm. Strumento means instrument, document, deed. Concordia means harmony, peace, agreement, and transazione means transaction, but also agreement, compromise, concession, composition (debtor’s). This was written, in Italian, by Porcu Gaias. The original was almost certainly not written in Italian but in Spanish, and comes from an index of notary acts and the notary act itself no longer exists. Why did Girolamo obtain this power of attorney for his father? Could not his father act on his own behalf? Was his father now in Sassari with his son or still in Naples, and if the latter, again why could he not act on his own behalf or have another person there act for him? What could Girolamo do for his father in Sassari if the father was in Naples? And what was the substance of the matter? So this is an example of a little historical or genealogical discovery which does not reveal much but only raises questions that will never be answered.

In 1737 Girolamo was commissioned by the Sassari city council to restore the King’s portrait. We learn this originally from the classic three volume history of Sassari by Enrico Costa who wrote this history in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, searching all the available archives (many had been destroyed in addition to the usual termites and neglect by food riots in 1780). He writes (page 1677): “1737 (9 Maggio) – Si pagano Ls. 7.10 al pintor Giromino Rufino napoletano, per riformare la pittura del quadro di S.M. (Am.).” (More on this below.)

In 1738 Girolamo goes far from Sassari for work in the cathedral of Oristano (we went to Midnight Mass there for Christmas a few years ago). He was paid 40 scudi for painting the four evangelists. This was done in collaboration with several others who figure often in Porcu Gaias’ study of art and architecture in Sassari: Govanni Battista Arietti, who was apparently a kind of very skilled master mason, designer, much sought after, and the Neapolitan Antonio Colli, who was a sculptor, painter, and “dorador,” responsible for gold leafing wooden sculptures. (Porcu Gaias calls Colli a Neapolitan but she also notes that he was the son of Juan Ambrogio Colli, who had been resident in Sassari until his death in 1699! You don’t shed your neapolitaness easily.) I think that Colli was a sponsor and mentor of Girolamo and appears to collaborate with him. Porcu Gaias thinks that Girolamo was commissioned for the Oristano work by Arietti and Colli who had been associated for some time with the cathedral.

Girolamo also went to the town of Pattada (located between Ozieri and Budduso’ around this time, as the administrative records of the church of Santo Spirito reveal that he was paid 12 scudi on February 12, 1738 for a painting.

A year later, on January 14, 1739, he was paid 7.10 lire for a painting done for the church of San Pietro in Bantine, which is a small hamlet near Pattada. Tuccone, who provides this information, states that it was obtained by Padre Amadu, former archivist for the diocese of Ozieri in those archives. There is no further notice of these paintings and what they depicted.

The last item we have for the 1730’s decade comes from Dott. Schoeneberger. Girolamo Ruffino (“Geronimo Ruffino, pintor, comorante en Sasser”) appears in a notary act of November 24, 1739, only as a neighbor of somebody who is selling a vineyard in the locality of Predda Niedda. In those days exact boundaries were not known so property in the countryside and houses in the city were described by their neighbors and further defined by the histories of the purchases and sales of the various properties so everybody would be agreed on what was being purchased and sold. Dott. Schoeneberger gathers many notary acts for his purposes and names appear on them as principals, the people undertaking the transactions, but also witnesses, other people mentioned, and people who own property surrounding. So, for our purposes all this notary act does is to show us that in 1739 Girolamo owned a vineyard in the locality of Predda Niedda. We learn later that he purchases and sells vineyards and in fact was commended for possessing an efficient and modern one, but through this notary act we know that he possessed a vineyard as early as 1739.

The 1740’s were a busy decade for Girolamo. In 1740 he did a painting for the retablo of Sant’Anna for the parish church of Ossi. During the period 1741 to 1751, which was the period of the reign of Carlo Casanova as Bishop of Alghero, Girolamo painted his portrait (he later painted his portrait again when he became Archbishop of Sassari – we saw both portraits).

In 1741 he was mentioned in a notary act as possessing a vineyard and was identified as “Geronimo Ruffino pintor Napolitano.”

In May of 1742 the municipio of Sassari paid Girolamo Ls. 25.15 to paint the King’s coat of arms, presumably for display at the municipio, and in April of the following year paid him another Ls. 52.10 for the portrait of the King that he had been commissioned to restore, Girolamo having himself paid for the canvas, paints and necessary material (Costa, p. 1677). Since he had to purchase a canvas (“tela”) I wonder if he painted a new portrait as a copy rather than restoring an existing one. Costa, the original source of this information uses the word “riformare”, which means to reform, improve. In any case, I assume there was only one portrait, the one that was commissioned on May 9, 1737, so it took a long time for the municipio to pay him, or, possibly, a long time for him to do the work.

Porcu Gaias, mentioning the work he did in 1742 and 1743 for the municipio, that, using present tense: “dipinge per il Municipio sassarese un quadro e le insegne del re, segno che all’epoca e’ il pittore piu’ importante e qualificato sulla piazza.” This seems to indicate that he painted a portrait from scratch, even if the King himself was not present, but using another portrait, and she claims that because he was chosen to do this and to paint the King’s coat of arms, it illustrates that he was the period’s most important and qualified painter in the area.

(Scano also thought very highly of Girolamo’s work during this period. She claims that the presence of Bartolomeo Augusto and Girolamo was fundamental to Sassari and its surroundings, their influence leading to a series of paintings likely due to their followers, amounting to a cultural climate, but, unfortunately, she provides no evidence for this assertion.)

There is a September 21, 1743 notary act for a dowry, and Girolamo is described as an expert, surveyer, appraiser (“perito”): “Jeronimo Rufino, pintor de nacion Napolitana.” There were other appraisers as well for various specialties, as she owned and was contributing to the dowry, land, furniture, paintings, other items which had to be appraised for their value.

There is a notary act dated October 14, 1743 regarding a vineyard which mentions that Girolamo owns a neighboring property.

There is a notary act dated December 12, 1743 (but appearing in Volume I for 1744), which concerns sale of a vineyard which apparently borders one owned by Girolamo, but which also contains language pertaining to Girolamo which indicates more than just being a neighbor, but that he opposes some action because of “jus congruum,” which was not a Latin term I could find on the internet and the summary which I have is written in Spanish which I can’t make out either. This notary act and some others provided by Dott. Schoeneberger are not clear to me but since I am not writing a history which has to be as complete and accurate as possible, but a family saga of direct ancestors, the details of some of Girolamo’s transactions don’t need to be gone into for this document.

Another notary act, dated January 8, 1744, also pertains to a vineyard and states that Girolamo turns over to a notary, Gavino Manca, 100 escudos, but the nature of the transaction is unclear to me. The Spanish reads that Girolamo deposited the sum and “se opuso’ al derecho del retrate…”, and Porcu Gaias states that the sum was deposited “in opposizione all’acquisto di una vigna,” which seems to say the sum was deposited in opposition to the purchase of the vineyard, which does not make sense to me.

There were several additional notary acts signed in 1744 pertaining to Girolamo, these times in association with the merchant Domingo Palomba, and in another with Palomba and Antonio Colli and others, to assign power of attorney for some sort of business transactions in Cagliari.

Porcu Gaias says of these transactions, which appear to be some sort of financial guarantee (she describes Palomba as a Neapolitan, and as one of the most important ones of his time) that in addition to his artistic work he engaged in commerce and financial transactions. She also states that these affairs did not seem always to be successful given that in 1750 his vineyard in Predda Niedda and all his belongings were “ipotecati quale cauzione per una eventuale condanna in giudizio,” which seems to mean held for mortgage or bail by creditors subject to being brought to court because he wasn’t paying his debts!

In 1746 he painted a painting of the martyrs of the Cathedral of San Gavino for the parish church of Ossi.

In 1747 Girolamo was mentioned in several notary acts, along with Colli, Palomba, and various other merchants and officials for playing some sort of role, perhaps as witnesses or agents, “por el arriendo delas rentas civiles del Partido de Monte Agudo, o sea de Osilo.” Which seems to mean for rendering the civil rents of the district of Monte Acuto. I have no idea what any of this means, just that possibly this group of men were involved in some sort of rent farming operation or transfer of funds from the local government in the area of Monte Acuto (of which Ozieri is usually said to be the chief town) to Cagliari. We have the original notary act which could be looked at if a serious attempt to understand were desired. For now it suffices that Girolamo was a man of affairs as well as a painter.

Also in 1747 was a notary act described as an “auto de indennisassion, y recompensassion firmado por Juan Bauptista Balero de Balero mercante genoves, domiciliado en Sasser,” involving Don Francisco Deliperi, Palomba, Colli, and Girolamo. This appears to be some sort of act of indemnity or reimbursement and compensation.

The 1750’s were a busy decade for Girolamo.

On March 17, 1750, his vineyard in the Predda Niedda locality and all his possessions were seized, is perhaps the word, or mortgaged or held on bail in some way, by his creditors, subject to legal proceedings. The painter Antonio Colli was among the people providing testimony on his behalf.

In 1751 Carlo Casanova became Archbishop of Sassari, and some time during his reign (to 1761) Girolamo painted another portrait of him.

On March 20, 1752 he obtained a 200 scudi loan from the merchant Domingo Palomba to honor a debt to avoid judicial consequences.

On April 27, 1753, Antonio Colli made an agreement with the Isabelline nuns to gold leaf their new altarpiece for the main altar of their convent church. Girolamo was listed as his “fideiussore,” which means I guess that he provided surety or bail for him. I assume the nuns paid him in advance and Girolamo had to testify that he would do the work or provide the money back?

Several sources, the website of the comune of Budduso’, and the Sard Encyclopedia, claim that Girolamo painted two paintings for the parish church of Sant’Anastasia there in 1754. Porcu Gaias claims that those paintings were done in 1734 (see that earlier citation).

In 1756 the Consiglio Municipale of Sassari commissioned two works from him: he received 110 lire for a painting for the oratory of the town council; and 100 lire to draw up plans for the port of Porto Torres. This seems to me to have been a big deal, quite an indication that he was regarded as highly accomplished (although he was paid less to do this than for a painting for the oratory). Porto Torres was not an independent town then, only a few hundred people living there and it was part of Sassari. The port over the centuries was continually plugging up and had to be drained and improved and Costa in his history of Sassari discusses numerous efforts to do so including at this time. Perhaps the town council commissioned several people to draw up plans, competing to see which would be the best. We don’t know any more about this, what came of it, or where Porcu Gaias got this information. It was not in Costa.

On September 14, 1757, the will of Antonio Colli, “dorador desta ciudad,” was opened and declared. The will had been made February 9, 1756 and the witness was “Jeronimo Rufino.” Interestingly, from what I can make out of the summary of this notary act, he requested to be buried in the church of the convent of St. Maria di Betlem, where his father had been buried, and, “su mujer usufruttuaria, su hermano heredero universal.” I think that means that his wife inherits the right to the use of his property while she is alive but his brother is the universal heir who gets it all when she dies and can pass it on. I guess they did not have children.

On March 10, 1758 Girolamo declared that he had acquired, on February 14, 1757, a house on Via Turritana, which was semi-destroyed and in need of repair, and to do so he was borrowing 300 scudi for four years at 6% interest, from Antonio Colli’s widow. As security he listed two vineyards in Predda Niedda.

In 1758 Girolamo was active painting in several small towns near Sassari. For the parish church of Florinas he painted a painting of San Francesco Saverio and of La Vergine della Recumandada. He painted, for the parish church of Usini, a painting of the martyrs of the cathedral of Porto Torres; the Virgin; Saint Joseph; and Saint John the Baptist.

The decade of the 1760’s was of great significance to Girolamo, if for no other reason that he was married, in 1761. Marriage is always significant but in my opinion what is extraordinary about his is that it occurred so late in his life! We don’t know when he was born, but surely not as late as 1710 if he was painting at St. Antonio Abate no later than 1728. He was probably born closer to the beginnings of the century, so would have been deep into his 50s at the time of his marriage.

Marrying at this age was by no means unusual, for a widower, but it is very late indeed for a first marriage. We will likely never know why he married so late. I have always imagined him to be an ambitious Neapolitan, very talented, perhaps a dashing figure in provincial Sassari, wanting to cut quite a figure among the locals. He certainly hobnobbed with the notables, so why didn’t he pursue and achieve an advantageous marriage as a young man? He seems to have married successfully enough when he did finally marry, considering his wife’s dowry and her relationship with notable people.

I had always thought, once we discovered that our ancestor Girolamo, married in Nule in 1790, had a father from Sassari named Domenico, that Domenico was the son of Girolamo the painter, so we looked for his marriage at suitable dates but found nothing. When we discovered the 1761 marriage I still had hope that this was the case, that he had married earlier, fathering Domenico, whose mother died, so Girolamo married again. But he is not described as a widower in the notary act, which is the kind of document in which the bride to be would want it explicitly known and stated if the husband to be was previously married and had children from that earlier marriage. This information would affect her considerably. There is no mention of a previous marriage. Nor is Domenico mentioned later as an heir after Girolamo has died.

So, we have a very active and successful Neapolitan painter and man about town, a man of various commercial and financial affairs, not always successful, marrying in 1761. We have both the civil notary act which is basically a description of the dowry which the bride brings to the marriage, and the religious document, the atto di matrimonio, so two good documents for this important event.

The notary act, or “capitulos nupciales,” dated August 22, 1761, states that the “soltero,” Spanish for Italian scapolo, English, bachelor, “pintor,” painter, Geronimo Rufino, whose father was Santo Rufino, mother Nicoleta Vuovolo, both of Naples and both deceased, is to marry the “soltera,” spinster, Maria Caterina Muchedda, whose father was Mastre Joseph Muchedda, albanil (capomastro), master mason, mother Maria Gracia Pinna, both of Sassari, and both deceased.

The dowry was described as consisting of 320 escudos, or the value of her vineyard in the locality Badde Usu; a one story house; and the usual household items women bring to a marriage. Her uncle, Reverendo Juan Sacayoni, who has a position at the cathedral of San Nicola, leaves her 200 lire as well, to pay for the household items.

(The priest Juan Sacayoni, was an interesting figure who was prominent in Sassari. He was a high level official at the cathedral and appears several times in Costa’s history of Sassari (as Giovanni Sacaioni as well as Sacayoni. During the food riots of 1780, which were caused because the populace lacked grain which they thought was being hoarded, and which destroyed most of the archives of the city, Sacayoni’s home was raided and virtually everything was stolen, “persino le lenzuola del letto,” even the linen on his bed (but not the bed?). Costa also includes a long list of musicians paid by the cathedral for several centuries and lists Sacayoni as being paid in November of 1753 75.12 lire annually as organist and “maestro di Capilla del Duomo.”

We also possess the atto di matrimonio, the religious document for this marriage, dated August 30, 1761, at the parish church, also cathedral, of San Nicola. This document spells his mother’s last name as Ovolo, but when one pronounces Vuovolo one can see how easily the priest might have missed the V sound and heard only Ovolo.

So, by this time Girolamo seems to have recovered from his earlier financial difficulties and made a good marriage, even though we do not understand why he married so late in life. His wife was presumably not very young herself as her parents were deceased, but as we will learn later, she was still of childbearing age.

Tola believes that Girolamo painted the picture of St. Ann and St. Borromeo in the cathedral of San Nicola in 1761, a painting commissioned by Archbishop Casanova, but Sari attributes the painting to another.

In 1761 Girolamo purchased another tall house (houses in Sassari were always described as either tall or short), next to the other one he owned, on Via Turritana, the second major street in Sassari. There is a notary act dated April 22, 1761 consisting of an appraisal of the property, appraised by two albanils.

Another notary act, dated May 20, 1761 describes a mortgage created for the purchase of the house, for 200 escudos at 8% interest. Another notary act of the same date describes the actual purchase of the house.

In the year of 1761, and even as late as 1771, Girolamo appears in a number of notary acts along with a long list of others, some of them notables, either nobles or notaries or possessing government titles, in some sort of activities pertaining to the Frumentaria, which was the public granary, where grain was stored after being purchased from throughout northern Sardinia until sale to the populace. I have viewed only summaries of the documents and I would have to learn Spanish to read and understand the actual documents, copies of some of which at least we have. For the purpose of this family history it will have to suffice that Girolamo engaged in some sort of financial, civic activities with many prominent members of the local government and commerce. One of the men was Juan de Campus, “clavario de la Frumentaria,” and this person also is a neighbor of Girolamo. Others are Antonio de Fraya, “natural de Napoles, mercante domiciliado en Saceri,” and other merchants, but also some described as being “massayo,” laborer.

On April 5, 1765, a final accounting of the expenditures after the death of Archbishop Casanova, included a receipt for 12 scudi to Geronimo for a painting that was placed in the new residence of the priests associated with the cathedral. This is the last reference I know of to any paintings by him and we don’t know when he actually painted it.

On January 1, 1766 Girolamo sold a vineyard or a portion of it. Schoeneberger summarizes the notary act as: “vendita de una vina en Baddi Usu: Geronimo Rufino, pintor, domiciliado en Sasser.” Porcu Gaias summarizes the same notary act as follows: Geronimo Ruffino vende meta’ di una vigna al viandante Antonio Gavino Masia.” So, either an entire vineyard or a portion of it was sold, but my question is: is this the same vineyard in Baddi Usu mentioned as being in the possession of Maria Caterina Muchedda in the notary act of 1761 prior to their marriage? If so, did he have the right to sell it?

Also in 1766, as well as in 1768 Geronimo appeared in notary acts as a perito, or appraiser in financial transactions and divisions of land.

The 1770’s were a hectic and eventful period, even if far less than a decade, since Girolamo died in 1775. Girolamo at the end of his life was active in a number of rather extraordinary, in my opinion, activities involving a number of high level people. He bought and sold vineyards, paid and obtained mortgages, and embarked on several ambitious commercial and financial activities. During this period he also held a high level, prestigious position as Vice Consul for Sassari for the Kingdom of Naples and the Two Sicilies, and was written about favorably in a leading book on the improvement of Sard agriculture.

In 1772 and 1773 he undertakes mortgages with the Isabelline nuns riguarding his homes. In 1775 he undertakes another mortgage obligation with the Canon, priest of the cathedral, Diego Arras (uncle of the famous Sard hero and leader of the anti feudal rebellions at the end of the 18th century, Giommaria Angioy). In 1774 he buys a vineyard in Predda Niedda, next to one he already owns.

Between the years 1770 and 1773 he embarks on three ambitious commercial enterprises, two involving such notables as Don Francisco Quesada, Bartolomeo Bertolinis, Genoese merchant, Reverendo Giovanni Sacayoni, the merchant Carlo Denegri, to manage the tuna catch and trade in the sea to the north of Sassari. Those must have been really quite large and complex undertakings and we do not know precisely what role Girolamo played other than perhaps some sort of financial contribution. It does seem that throughout his commercial and financial activities he, along with the numerous other non-Sard merchants and financiers active in Sardinia but native to places such as Naples and Genoa, managed somehow to insert themselves as middlemen in a variety of fairly complicated financial enterprises.

The activity which fascinates me the most and one which I really do not understand fully and can hardly imagine him undertaking involves collecting rent from shepherds.

Sassari, in the 18th century, for centuries earlier, and also today, is a city densely populated (at that time no more than 20,000 people in a tiny area, today 130,000 spread out, but still contained and centralized), and surrounded by a huge countryside of gardens, vineyards, olive orchards, forests, mountains, wild pasture lands. All this land is under the jurisdiction of the city of Sassari.

In the 18th century shepherds from throughout the northwest area of Sardinia brought their sheep, goats, cattle, horses, pigs, to feed in this wild publicly owned countryside, subject to paying rent to the city. The city designated the rent from some of these pastures to the University of Sassari. Well, in 1771, Girolamo obtained a contract to collect these rents from the shepherds for 250 scudi. Knowing what I do about shepherds in Sardinia, at that time, earlier, and later, and knowing somewhat what the countryside must have been like and how difficult it would have been just to know which shepherds were at any given place at any given time, it is really difficult to imagine this 60 or 65 year old Neapolitan church and portrait painter saddling up his horse to ride out to the country to collect rent from the shepherds (who were by and large a fairly fierce folk)! Presumably he hired some worthies to do the actual work. I don’t know nor do I know how much money 250 scudi was, whether it was sufficient to warrant hiring more capable people or how much could be expected to be collected so that the university could expect a good enough payoff for what it gave to Girolamo. This is one example of many in which one wanting to know more would have to go to the original source if available. This information comes from Porcu Gaias and I don’t know her source. She does not cite a notary act and Schoeneberger does not list this event in his list of notary acts pertaining to Girolamo.

As I mentioned earlier, the last known painting done by Girolamo was the one mentioned in the 1765 account of Archbishop Casanova and presumably painted before that year (Tola also cites signed paintings by him at the parish churches of Bonnanaro and Torralba, but gives no dates.) So we are not aware of any paintings during the last ten years of his life (I assume that he also painted personal family portraits, as the portraits of Casanova attest an ability to do so, but we have no evidence of any others.) So the last few years of his life were dedicated to other pursuits and we can look upon the last five years as a time when he hobnobbed with the notables, was one himself, and did not lack for recognition.

Sardinia at that time belonged to the House of Savoy, the kingdom of Piedmont, with headquarters at Turin. Italy was divided among a number of entities, and the southern half and Sicily belonged to the Kingdom of Naples and the Two Sicilies. Both this kingdom and Sardinia had earlier belonged to Spain. The Kingdom of Naples had diplomatic relations with the House of Savoy, and its Ambassador would be stationed in Turin, but it would have consuls throughout the Savoy kingdom, including Sardinia, at places important to it for purposes of trade or for other reasons. So it had a Consul in Cagliari, as the capital of Sardinia, and Vice Consuls in several other places in Sardinia, including Sassari. Girolamo represented the Kingdom of Naples in Sassari for a number of years during this period, as two notary acts pertaining to other matters mention that he was the Vice Consul (1770 and 1772).

This was an important position because Naples, Sicily and Sassari engaged in a considerable amount of trade and other forms of interaction, so in addition to being honorary it could have involved significant duties and indicated that Girolamo was a man of importance who could be relied on to know things and people and to get things done. Pretty impressive. (I contacted the Archivio di Stato di Napoli and learned that they have several containers of records between the Kingdom at Naples and the consuls of Sardinia and these containers are available for inspection, and there could be some information contained there of his activities.)

Finally, Francesco Gemelli, who sought to modernize Sard agriculture, in his book “Rifiorimento della Sardegna proposta nel miglioramento di sua agricoltura,” published in Turin in 1776, wrote (page 235) highly of Girolamo, “Girolamo Ruffino napoletano di nascita, dipintore di professione, ammogliato in Sassari e in questa citta’ stabilito,” that he set out to cultivate his vineyard in the correct manner and as a result produced an optimal wine, which, lamentably, however, was not appreciated on the market because the poor unenlightened market did not appreciate how good it was and it was judged not to be genuine! So, he tried, did well, but was before his time!

Girolamo’s known artwork is catalogued in Sassari and it is hoped that Dottoressa Marisa Porcu Gaias will soon embark upon a definitive monograph on his life, calling upon her own vast and deep knowledge of art history and the history of Sassari and Sardinia, as well as the material that she and Dott. Walter Schoeneberger and others have unearthed. Girolamo was clearly a fascinating man who led a remarkable life and a sufficient amount is known about him to lead the way to further discoveries and in the hands of the right person, such as Porcu Gaias, he could really emerge as an intriguing figure in Sard history. My purpose here, though, was to highlight in a summary fashion the kinds of things we know about a man who was also related to us.

We don’t know precisely when he died. He does not appear in the Sassari atti di morte. Some data are missing from those archives and perhaps he died elsewhere. We do know, from Dott. Schoenberger’s list of atti notarili that on March 24, 1775 he was embarking upon mortgage transactions as shown by two notary acts. The next pertinent notary act, dated July 4, 1775 pertains to the creation of a mortgage for an olive grove in Predda Niedda, which borders on the vineyard of Girolamo. In this notary act Girolamo is designated as deceased. We do not have any will or inventory of goods left at the time of death, both of which were typically subjects of notary acts.

When Girolamo died he was survived by his widow and two minor children (all the information below on these three comes from Schoeneberger’s summary list of notary acts): Maria Caterina Muchedda, widow, and the children Maria Gracia and Juan Ruffino.

On March 24, 1777 a Carlos Dova, “Brigadier del Regimiento de Dragones, Torines” (Carlo Dova, sergeant of the Turin Regiment of Dragoons) makes an appearance. I cannot understand from the Spanish summary what was going on but in some fashion Carlos Dova had inserted himself into the Ruffino family and in this act engages in some activity along with the widow.

A notary act dated January 21, 1779, while mysterious, is also instructive in that it mentions the widow Maria Caterina Muchedda and that she is now married, to Giovanni Bergonso. Not only that, but the daughter, Maria Grazia Ruffino, is also married, and to “Carlino” Dova! The act itself remains a mystery as for now all we have is the summary, which describes it as an “apoca de 248.6.6 lire: Giovanni Bergonso + Maria Caterina Muchedda,” widow of Girolamo Ruffino and an arrow pointing to Maria Grazia Ruffino, married to Carlino Dova. I looked up the word apoca online and the infinitive apocar means to diminish, decrease, limit, reduce, so I don’t know what the transaction was but it does show that the daughter is married at a young age. Girolamo and Maria Grazia married in 1761 so we presume the daughter would not have been born earlier than 1762, maybe later, so already married at the age of 17. And she married a foreign military man who had already been involved in the family’s finances two years earlier.

Dova makes another appearance in a notary act dated May 17, 1780, “apoca de 66 escudos: dr. D. Antonio Fois, y Salvador Francisco Manunta (arrow) Carlino Dova que son los mesmos deneros que tenia depositado el (deceased) Geronimo Rufino, y como a passado a mejor vida los paga dicho Dova, y se dan por pagados quitos, y enteramiente a cumplimiento satisfechos del deposito hecho.” Now I would make a guess for now: An apoca (let’s say it represents a decrease of money from one party by giving it to another) of 66 escudos in favor of Doctor Don Antonio Fois and Salvador Francisco Manunta by Carlino Dova, which is the same money that was deposited by Geronimo Rufino, who, since he has passed on to a better life, is paid by the said Dova, and with this payment it is quit, settled to the satisfaction of all completely of this deposit. Maybe Girolamo had some money deposited somewhere, now it belongs to Dova as husband of his heir, and he pays off a debt with it to Fois and Manunta?

A notary act dated March 27, 1781: “prestacion de fianza: Carlos Dova, Brigadier en el Regimiento de Dragones de Sardegna, Pablo Delitala (fianza) (arrow) los menores Juan Ruffino, y Maria Gracia Ruffino.” This seems to mean that some sort of financial guarantee, bail, surety, security has been made by Dova and Pablo Delitala in favor of the minors (one of whom is married to said Dova) Juan Ruffino and Maria Gracia Ruffino.

A notary act dated April 12, 1781 seems to be a modification of two mortgages on behalf of the minor children. The mortgages were initiated in 1767 and 1768 on a vineyard in Pedra Niedda. This vineyard is said to be very near one of Reverend Juan Sacayoni and Maria Caterina Muchedda. Dova is also described as the “curador,” for the minors, presumably guardian.

A notary act dated November 20, 1787: “divisione hermanos Juan Rufino, y Maria Gracia Rufino (married to) (Carlino Dova, agudante [ajutante] de esta plasa), heirs of Jeronimo Ruffino, “morto alcuni anni prima senza far testamento” (since this last phrase is in Italian it is presumably written by Schoeneberger), died many years previously without making a will. Presumably this is a division of the property left by Girolamo among his two heirs, his children (the wife does not inherit; she has use of the property while she is alive and her dowry). Presumably it was legal and ethical for a man who is married to one of the minor heirs to be the guardian of both of them and therefore have control of the estate? Is she still a minor? I think one was a minor until the age of 25 but we don’t know when she was born (we know her brother Juan was born in 1765 because his atto di morte in 1793 describes him as 28). So he was still a minor in 1787. She must have been born earlier than that to have been married by 1779.

The next notice we have of the heirs is the atto di morte for Ioannes Ruffinus (known as Juan in the Spanish language notary acts) in the parish church of Santa Caterina, in 1793, in which he is said to be 28 years old. I certainly would like to know more about him and why this early death. We do not know whether he had any heirs.

The next notary act, seemingly written in Italian now that we are in the 19th century and almost a hundred years have gone by since the Spaniards were ejected from Sardinia, was dated January 21, 1804. Schoeneberger summarizes it as follows: “fundazione di cappellania: Maria Grazia Rufino/Ruffino (vigna in Pedra Niedda e palazzo in contrada turritana).” This appears to be the foundation, creation, of a fund or endowment of a chaiplancy employing the proceeds from a vineyard and a house that is rented out. That is my guess. She seems to be prosperous enough to have established an endowment for a priest to be supported by earnings from the vineyard and the house rental, but that is only a guess. One would have to see the entire notary act.

A notary act of August 3, 1807 describes a “permuta capitolo turritano,” which seems to mean a barter or exchange of some of her property with that of the cathedral chapter, two buildings adjacent to each other involved, she intends to build within one of them a mill (molino) and increase the height to form a “palazzo,” or big building, “che passera’ poi ai Conventuali (donazione 1807 III, 522)”, which seems to mean that there is some sort of exchange or trade or barter of buildings, she will convert one of them into a mill and extend it, and then donate it to the monks!

Another notary act later in the month, August 23 seems to denote that the Franciscan monks are renting to her (“vedova Maria Grazia Ruffino”), a short house which she intends to elevate to a palazzo and place within it an olive mill at her own expense. This house is next door to a house she owns. This act clearly pertains to the previous one.

The previous notary acts of 1804 and 1807 appear to show a prosperous and generous widow who is contributing to the church. The next notary act that we have, dated May 3, 1815, however, demonstrates that in the meantime she has come upon hard times. Schoeneberger’s description is as follows: “donazione vedova Maria Grazia Ruffino/Ruffinu (arrow, implying gives to) sacerdote Giuseppe Luigi Figoni; la Ruffino e’ oppressa dai debiti; dona tutto al Figoni, che le passa scudi 100 ciascun anno e le da’ aloggio: sebbene avesse la supplicante, con stromento delli 13.5.1814 donato tutti i suoi beni allo speziale Gianfilippo Brandino; con successivo instromento il Brandino ridono’ tutto quanto alla vedova (26.7.1814).” What this appears to say is that the widow, being oppressed by debts, donates all that she has to the priest Figoni, who in return commits to giving her 100 scudi every year and a dwelling, even though she had earlier donated all of her possessions to the speziale (druggist or grocer) Brandino, who then returned it all to her!

There seems to ensue a series of these mutual donations back and forth.  A notary act dated June 21, 1816, seems pretty complicated, but it is a transaction between the Reverends Gavino Arborio Mella and Giuseppe Luigi Figoni and the vedova Maria Grazia Ruffino for some improvements in the vineyard in Pedra Niedda belonging to her and the chaplaincy founded on the basis of her possessions, in which Figoni subcontracts into the situation as he was given a donation by her; and the olive mill is brought into it, and a debt the widow has with the mother of Don Gavino Arborio Mella, Dona Maria Angela Quesada.  Those Sassarese provincials and churchmen (and women – the nuns were no slouches when it came to mortgage arcana) got themselves enbroiled, enmeshed deeply in very arcane financial transactions.

With a notary act of March 29, 1817, the priest Giuseppe Luigi Figoni gives back to the widow the goods that she had donated to him in 1815.

On August 24, 1817, Maria Grazia’s will shows that her heir is the priest Giuseppe Luigi Figoni.

In a notary act of May 29, 1819, the priest Giuseppe Luigi Figoni appears to turn over to the druggist or grocer of Alghero, Giovanni Nieddu, a donation of 500 scudi which had been transferred from Gian Filippo Brandino in 1815 from the donation of the widow Ruffinu (I think).

A notary act dated November 6, 1819 appears to be a family division of an estate and lists a large number of people dividing it up and those who are getting and owing various things and amounts. It looks like, although I could be wrong, that one of them, the storekeeper Giovanni Antonio Sanna, owes 100 scudi to the vedova Maria Grazia Ruffinu.

A notary act dated July 17, 1821, “revoca di una cappellania fondata da Maria Grazia Ruffino l’8.5.1805 e 21.l.1804),” seems to be the termination of the chaplaincy that she founded in 1804.

And finally, the last reference we have so far to the vedova Maria Grazia Ruffino, is a notary act dated June 23, 1827, in which she makes a donation to the attorney Maurizio Sotgia.

This is what we know as of now of Girolamo the painter, his wife, and their two children, who, so far as we know, had no children of their own. We don’t know what happened to Girolamo’s widow after her re-marriage. Their son died at the age of 28. Their daughter, Maria Grazia Ruffino, on the other hand, seems to have engaged in a fairly active and varied life, marrying a foreigner and military man to boot, thriving financially and bestowing her abundance upon others, only to fall into desperate straits requiring a series of financial transactions with various people to allow her to live with her large load of debt.

Further searches of atti notarili as well as the parish records would no doubt reveal considerably more about this branch of the family but that would require quite an undertaking at the archives in Sassari.

Domenico Ruffino, the Painter

Sources: We learned the little we know of him largely ourselves, with the parish records at Ozieri and Nule; the parish records at the Archivio Diocesano in Sassari; a notary act in Benetutti located by my research assistant; and the information provided by Dott. Schoeneberger. It is also possible that Domenico Ruffino is also Mastru Domingo, Napoletano, who is known for a painting at a church in Cagliari. If so, that information was given to me by Tola, and I discovered it myself later in a book and have a copy of the page of the convent records that record the contract for a painting. But we do not know whether they are the same person.

Unlike the painter Girolamo, Domenico is our direct ancestor. We traced back to him from the Ozieri civil records followed up by perusal of the church records in Ozieri, which led to Nule from Ozieri through Giuseppe Salvatore and his father, Luigi, who in turn was Girolamo’s son. In Nule we discovered the atto di matrimonio of Girolamo, in 1790, to a woman from Nule, Maria Masala. That document stated that Girolamo’s parents, both from Sassari, as he himself was, although residing in Benetutti, were Maria Francesca Piana and Domenico Ruffino.

We had thought that Domenico was the son of Girolamo the painter as the dates seemed right. But we learned that Girolamo was not married until 1761, at which time he was described as a bachelor, not a widower, so we came to think that the two were brothers. We know from Girolamo’s marriage documents that his parents, from Naples, were Santo Rufino and Nicoleta Vuovolo, and we learned, from the atti di morte of Sassari, that Domenico had named his daughter Nicoleta, and his son, of course, Girolamo. So it makes sense that they were related and brothers seems most reasonable, if not cousins or uncle and nephew.

Here is the documentary evidence we have for Domenico: the atto di matrimonio mentioned above, in Nule, 1790; the atto di morte for little Nicoleta, in 1752, at the age of one, parents Domenico Ruffino and Maria Francesca Piana; baptisms in 1752 and 1756 of daughters; and, also for 1752, a notary act provided by Dott. Schoeneberger, which concerned the inventory of goods of a deceased merchant, which listed among the merchant’s debtors, Domingo Ruffino, pintor. If Domingo is also Mastru Domingo, Napoletano, we also have a copy of a page of a record book of the convent in Cagliari. That is all; Domenico remains a man of mystery.

We have no record of his birth, which presumably was in Naples. We have no record of his marriage. We lack records of the baptisms of his known children Nicoleta and Girolamo. We lack the record of his death. We possess no notary acts attesting to purchase or sale of homes or vineyards, contracting of mortgages or any other kind of financial transaction, even though we searched years of notary acts for Sassari and for the area around it, Alghero and the area around it, and Ozieri and the area around it.

Tola, who first broached the possibility of Mastru Domingo when I told him that my ancestor was Domenico, stated that painters of that period were itinerant, going where there was work. Girolamo, who certainly painted in many places far away, and who certainly travelled great distances, always had a home base in Sassari. Domenico seems not to have had such. We know he was living in Sassari, indeed in the parish of San Nicola, from 1752 through 1756, when we have records of the death of a daughter and the births of two other daughters, as well as his debt to a merchant. In the 1790 marriage document of his son he and has wife were reported to be from Sassari, but that doesn’t prove they still resided there. If he was indeed Mastru Domingo we know he got as far away as Cagliari and it is possible that he did most of his work down there and he may appear copiously in the volumes of notary acts located in Cagliari.

My theory is that he was the younger brother of Girolamo. I have Girolamo being born between 1700 and 1705 perhaps a few years later, and having arrived in Sassari around 1725 or up to 1728, when he did his first painting at Sant’Antonio Abate. I think Domenico came with him or soon after, serving as his apprentice and later in his workshop as an assistant (born perhaps around 1720). One possibility after that is that he was not a success as a painter, in fact was a poor or mediocre painter and performed few works of art, having to make a living through other means, perhaps in some sort of related field having to do with architectural construction. However, in those days occupations were organized by guilds and in order to work one had to be apprenticed in a trade and learn it well, pass a test and we don’t know if he did those things. We do know that his son Girolamo was a master mason. Domenico may even have had a falling out with his successful brother, feeling that he was not supporting him enough, given his success while he himself was floundering, with a family to support.

If it is true that Girolamo benefitted by an apprenticeship with his talented relative DiFalco and might even have worked with Solimena himself, his young brother Domenico would have had only Girolamo as a mentor, and could conceivably therefore have received a less valuable training and apprenticeship. This in turn could have resulted in a a lesser talent and less success for him in Sardinia.

Another possibility, a happier one, is that after his apprenticeship and a period of activity in Sassari (as shown by his presence there from 1752 to 1756) he, with confidence in his skills and his networks) decided to branch out and travel about as an independent painter, wishing furthermore to establish his own identity and reputation, hence the nom de plume Mastru Domingo, Napoletano.

Given the absence of marriage, baptism, and death records of Domenico and his children in Sassari, one wonders whether all those events did occur in Sassari but the records were lost, or whether in fact the records are not in Sassari because the events happened somewhere else. If elsewhere that leaves a large potential territory, all of Sardinia, say. I tried to narrow it down by looking at Benetutti, since his son went there and perhaps he had done so because he had contacts there which his father may have established earlier. That may be true but the research I was able to undertake in Benetutti in a brief period of time did not unearth anything.

Another reasonable avenue to pursue is to go to the parish records of towns near to Sassari, half a dozen or so, to see if Domenico was married there (marriage records give the names of parents so we can find out who his parents were). As I stated earlier, we have already combed through notary acts.

Another possible thread is the pursuit of Mastru Domingo, which would involve reading all the administrative records of the convent in Cagliari, an easy task, but according to the archivist who maintains the records, people were identified only by first name. Still one could do that to get more references to Mastru Domingo for dates at least, and then look at the atti notarili for the years when his presence in Cagliari is attested by those records to see if perhaps he appears, with his surname, in those acts.

Unfortunately, the Archivio di Stato in Cagliari is not user friendly like the one in Sassari and limits the use of volumes of atti notarili to the public quite severely.

Since we were unable to find anything regarding Domenico himself, I hoped to find out something about his milieu, his social ambience, his network of people, to get some kind of idea of the life he might have led. One does that in a gross, general way, of course, by reading three volume histories of Sassari such as the one by Costa or the book by Porcu Gaias. But I wanted to narrow it down. So recently I went to the Archivio Diocesano to look for the baptism records for his children hoping to get the names of their godparents, which would reveal who his contacts were, whom he could call upon within his network of relatives, friends, acquaintances, business relations, to perform this task which in those days was important having religious and moral responsibilities not merely transitory social ones.

I did find the baptism records of two daughters:

Maria Filippa Antonietta Nicoletta Ruffino was born and baptized on August 8, 1752 at the parish church of the cathedral of Sassari, San Nicola. Note that one of her many names was Nicoletta. Her sister Nicoleta was buried in the same church the previous month at the age of one year. So we have a picture to imagine of the parents Domenico and Maria Francesca, she eight months pregnant, at the time their one year old daughter dies.

Her godparents were the nobleman Don Giuseppe Quesada (son of the Nobleman Don Francesco Quesada and the Noblewoman Donna Caterina Angela Delitala) and Margherita Quessa. Now that is a big deal, having a nobleman, and a member of a very important noble family, being your daughter’s godfather. This is very significant but we don’t really know in what way. It could mean that Domenico knew the Quesada family because he painted the family portraits and that would indicate that he was a good, established, successful painter, with word of mouth commissions involved.

It is likely that the relationship was not a symmetric one of equals, but much more like asymmetrical and patron-client, as is typical for godparenthood ties anyway. Still, it might reveal a close enough ongoing relationship rather than a fleeting one as people in those days took their religion and their religious obligations seriously and godparents were regarded as having moral instructional obligations to the children they baptized or confirmed and to have ongoing relationships, and even to take over at least spiritual guidance in the absence of the parents. It is possible also that the ties with the Quesada come from Maria Francesca Piana, as she herself, when she was confirmed in 1740, had as her godmother the Noblewoman Donna Theresia Roca. Quessa is a common Sard and Sassarese name.

Maria Rita Nicolosa Antonia Filippa Ruffino was born and baptized on May 24, 1756, also at the parish church of San Nicola. Her godparents were Salvatore Capitta (a common Sassarese name) and Maria Angela Gerin, a very uncommon and not at all Sard name. I have come across it and possibly it belonged to a continental family much like many other families that arrived from the continent to engage in commerce and trade and various skills.

I found these two and I had hopes therefore of having the baptismal records of five children and ten godparents. I knew there were also Nicoleta and Girolamo, and I suspected another male child who I assumed remained in Sassari and was the ancestor of what I take to be a Sassari branch of the family, which I call the Gesuino Ruffini, since I have come across some Gesuino Ruffini in Sassari in the 19th century archives and there is a Gesuino Ruffini residing today in Sassari, and I doubt that Girolamo, Domenico’s son, had any male children that left Nule for Sassari. It is possible, though, that the Ioannes who died at the age of 28 had married and had had children even though we have found no traces.

So I had hoped for a network of ten godparents, but only have four since I was unable to find the baptism records of Nicoleta (which surprised me greatly, since we know exactly when she died, how old she was – one year, and it should have been easy to find it) or Girolamo. The lack of these two records really surprised as well as disappointed me. Granted that the Sassari parish records have many gaps, it is really a bit too much to expect that virtually all potential records for Domenico and his children are lacking: his marriage, his death, the baptisms of Nicoleta and Girolamo, and possibly other children. So, possibly Domenico and Maria Francesca were living in a nearby town and married there, and moved back to Sassari by 1752.

In any case, Domenico, our earliest direct ancestor and presumably brother of a distinguished man of affairs and painter, and a link to a distinguished artistic background in Naples, remains a man of mystery and we still have no proof about his origins or much knowledge of his life in Sardinia.

Girolamo Ruffino, Master Mason

We do not know when or even where he was born, presumably some time prior to 1755 (he bought two houses in Benetutti in 1779 and could not have done so as a minor, which is up to the age of 25). Probably he was born before his sister Nicoleta, who was born in 1751, since at the time of her death in 1752 the family was living in San Nicola parish and two daughters were born there in 1752 and 1756, and a perusal of those records for that time period did not disclose his birth. If he was born around 1750 he would have been 40 when he married in Nule in 1790. That is our first documental evidence for him. Earlier we had learned from the civil records of Nule that Luigi, born in Nule, had a Girolamo as his father.

In the marriage document of 1790, he is described as a mastru, which means master, a term used to designate somebody with some particular skill as a skilled craftsman, presumably somebody who has served a long apprenticeship and has passed a guild test so that he became a member of the guild and was allowed to practice his trade and charge the appropriate fee for his services. I had thought he was a master mason as his son Luigi was described in the civil records later as a muratore, or mason.

That was confirmed in a notary act for 1779 in Benetutti, showing that mastru Girolamo Ruffino, of Sassari, an albanil, or master mason, purchased two houses. That document was quite an important discovery as it revealed a man who was already accomplished at that time, a master mason who could afford to purchase two homes in Benetutti. We don’t know why he went to Benetutti or if he had gone earlier than 1779. We had known from the marriage document in 1790 that he was at that time domiciled in nearby Benetutti, but we didn’t know how long he had lived there. Indeed we still do not know if he first moved there in 1779, or in fact if he did in fact move there when he bought the two houses, and if so, whether he resided there the whole time until his marriage in Nule in 1790.

I assume he went to Benetutti because he had the offer of work. I doubt he would have left Sassari, as a skilled craftsman, for Benetutti a remote village of mixed agricultural-pastoral economy, without specific arrangements for work, possibly for a church or to construct houses or public buildings. I would think that through his family, relatives, or guild contacts he would have been told of work that would be given to him. He presumably had worked somewhere earlier if he had saved enough to purchase two houses in Benetutti, although, of course, mortgages were common in those days.

So we have a picture of a successful, ambitious young craftsman willing to take chances and explore new places, arriving and settling down in Benetutti and finding work, possibly thriving. Benetutti possessed some noble and wealthy families, somewhat more pretentious a place than nearby Nule, which was higher up the mountain and more strictly pastoral. Girolamo, while residing all this time in Benetutti, met his future wife in Nule, perhaps while he was there on some work assignments.

A book I have on Nule mentions old photos that display the old traditional buildings of the town before they were stuccoed over and show how fine the stone work was done in those distant times by masons who had to work with less than ideal, modern tools. I don’t know when those particular buildings were constructed, public buildings as well as homes, but it is possible that Girolamo did work on a number of buildings in Nule prior to his marriage and subsequent residence there.

In any case he married Maria Masala, from Nule. Masala is a common name there and we presume she belonged to a shepherd family, where the men tended the flocks while the women kept the homes and weaved excellent woolen fabrics. During the 1790’s it is reasonable to assume, as I always had, that the family prospered, since there was evidence obtained by Nino among the civil records, and by us among the notary acts, that the Ruffini who remained in Nule were successful, owning property and one of them becoming mayor during the 19th century.

The couple had three children that we know of, Luigi, who became a mason, lived in Nule, but eventually moved to Ozieri when his son Giuseppe Salvatore did; Giuseppe, about whose future we know nothing; and Antonio Sisinnio Francesco, who died in 1791.

As I said, I had a positive image of the successful master mason in his new home of pastoral Nule, a place I had always liked, having driven through it often 40 years ago and witnessing with pleasure the many shepherds in their traditional costumes. I had a good feeling about it and was later pleased to learn that my ancestors had lived there.

That image was tested severely in October when I discovered an amazing documents in the parish church of Nule. I was looking through a book, a volume of the atti di morte, death notices for the period from 1790 to 1806, I think the volume covered. I was hoping to find a death notice for Domenico, Girolamo’s father, hoping that since I had not discovered his death notice in Sassari that he might have died elsewhere and possibly where his son was living, having gone there late in his life to live with him.

I did not discover a death notice for Domenico. Toward the end of the volume, though, as my eyes were beginning to glaze over as I was coming to the end and felt that it was unlikely that I would find anything, I stumbled upon the amazing document. It was written in Italian, unlike all the surrounding documents which were written very briefly and concisely in boilerplate Latin, recording in a formulaic way the death of someone.

The document, written in 1804, reads as follows, with some words not clear and only guessed at:

“Essendosi ritrovato un corpo extrasecco nel luogo volgarmente chiamato Sa Conca [de i de] Cara Tunda, il quale a voce comune di questo poppolo ci e’ rasomigliato ad un tal mastro Girolamo Ruffino nativo sassarese domiciliato era in questa di Nule ed avendo girato la scatola manco’ tre anni…ed essere stato in comunione santa madre chiesa, come ancora avendo trovato vari breveti di nostra religione, lo ho collocato nel cimiterio di questa nostra parrochial chiesa ed in fede… Brundu…”

I translate the document as follows: “Having discovered a desiccated corpse in the locality named Sa Conca [de i de] Cara Tunda, which according to the common view of the people resembles a certain mastro Girolamo Ruffino, a native of Sassari, but resident in this town, and having gone out of his mind, disappeared and was missing for three years, and being in communion with our holy mother church, as was also shown by his possessing various prayer books of our religion, I assigned him to the cemetery of our parish church, and in faith…..Father Brundu”

Well, there is much that can be said about this document. The brevity and starkness of the narrative can be ascribed to the religious purpose of the document. The priest is presented with a human body, it is said to be of a man who is in good standing with the Church, so he is given a Christian burial. The document is not a civil, judicial, police document in which many questions should have been asked.

One tries to imagine the situation. A man who seemed to show such promise, who went successfully through the Sassari guild system to become a skilled master mason and acquired a reputation allowing him to establish a trade and a family, somehow and for some reasons, gradually became mentally ill, perhaps became at least a nuisance, perhaps a serious impediment to his family and the community, finally wandered off from the small settlement to the vast countryside surrounding the small villages and towns spread throughout the then forested mountains, became lost, starved, died abandoned and alone, in a place far from the usual trails of the shepherds.

I suspect he became rather an impediment, at least a pest, possibly a dangerous threat, at least unwelcome in Nule, perhaps forsaken by his family. Otherwise a population of 1000 people, all of whom well known to each other, with a carefully nurtured sense of community, the men mainly shepherds who spent their lives in the wilderness, and who formed teams to search for missing or stolen animals, would have looked for and found a vulnerable person wandering about helplessly. Or perhaps he often wandered off and returned and it was assumed he would once again return, but this time he didn’t. We shall never know, but whatever happened, it is a sad story.

Luigi Ruffinu, Mason, and the Ozieri Ruffini

Most of the information in this last section was obtained by Nino from the civil records, followed up by our search of the Ozieri and Nule parish records, and later by some atti notarili, and the legal proceedings regarding another Luigi, my uncle.

Luigi was the son of Girolamo Ruffino and Maria Masala, born in Nule sometime during 1793-1795. He married Grazia Coloru, also of Nule, in 1815. There were four children from that marriage: Girolamo, born 1816; Giovanni (Giuseppe Salvatore), born circa 1825; Giovanna, born 1819; and Nicolo, born 1828. We are descended from Giovanni, or Giuseppe Salvatore.

Luigi married again in 1831. His wife was Francesca Farre/Crabangiu. There were six children from that marriage.

The Nule cadastral records indicate that he owned just over 13 hectares of land. In 1860 six of those hectares were alienated to his children Giovanna, Nicolo, and Giovanni Antonio (Farre).

The Nule civil rolls state that he died in 1870, and gave his age as 81, which would be incorrect, as he was born between 1793 and 1795. He was described as a muratore, or mason, of Monte Cabadino, which I presently take to be a neighborhood of Nule. He was also described as a muratore in the Ozieri civil records.

Note that while Luigi died at Nule in 1870, the Nulese parish census rolls or matricola show no Ruffini after 1852, the year that Giuseppe Salvatore married in Ozieri, so it is presumed that Luigi went to Ozieri when his son did. Presumably he later returned to Nule while his son remained in Ozieri.

It is interesting to speculate about Luigi’s trade as a muratore or mason. Muratore can mean a wide range of things, actually. It can mean a master mason, a really skilled craftsman, almost a sculptor in stone, which is what I think the term mastru muratore or albanil signified for his father, Girolamo. It can also mean a manual laborer, a construction worker, hod carrier, brick layer. We don’t know where along this scale of activities Luigi fell. I also wonder how he came to be a muratore. He was born and raised in Nule, a shepherding town. His father was a master mason but he had died, having gone crazy and wandering off into the wilderness, when Luigi was no more than seven or eight years old, perhaps as early as six. Could he have begun to apprentice with him at such a young age, and could his father have been mentally fit enough to train him? I doubt it.

Perhaps his mother, the widowed Maria Masala, remarried, and to another mason in Nule or Benetutti, perhaps someone who had been in association with Girolamo. Or perhaps it is simply a coincidence.

Giuseppe Salvatore (aka Giovanni) Ruffinu

Before I knew of the sad end of Girolamo in the wilderness of Nule, I had the idea that the Nulese Ruffini had done fairly well, while the Ruffini who left Nule for Ozieri fared less well, perhaps even badly. Knowing now as we do about Girolamo’s end we no longer have such a rosy picture of the Nulese Ruffini. Still, the family seemed to do well enough there, as witnessed by Luigi’s possession of 13 hectares of land, not a bad property, perhaps vineyard, olives, fruit trees, vegetable garden, maybe even some grain planted.

But, for whatever reasons, his son Giuseppe Salvatore (aka Giovanni) chose to leave Nule. The Nule church census records, or matricola (stato delle anime) show that Luigi and his wife Grazia Coloru had a son named Giovanni born circa 1825. Giovanni appears in these records year after year until disappearing after the 1851 entries.

The following year, in Ozieri in 1852, a man named Giuseppe Salvatore Ruffinu (explicitly described as the son of Luigi Ruffinu and Grazia Coloru from Nule) married Mattia Culeddu. This is the last year in which Luigi’s family appears in the Nule matricola records, suggesting that Giovanni (Giuseppe Salvatore) left Nule circa 1851 for Ozieri and that his family followed him the following year.

A reason to believe that Giovanni and Giuseppe Salvatore are the same is that in 1855 the Ozieri baptism record of Antonio Francesco Ruffinu, list Mattia Culeddu as his mother and originally gave Antonio’s father’s name as Giuseppe Salvatore, but this is corrected to Giovanni.

There is no death recorded for Giuseppe Salvatore in Ozieri’s civil death records, which begin in 1866, which indicates that he died before then or died elsewhere.

We have no idea what occupation he had or whether he prospered or struggled. We know of two children, Antonio Francesco mentioned above, and his brother, my grandfather, to be discussed below. I suspect that Giuseppe Salvatore did not do well or if he did that he did not pass on his success to his son Giovanni Maria, my grandfather. He is really pretty much unknown. (Although one of Antonio Francesco’s daughters, Pietruccia’s, daughter married Achille Deledda, who was related to the Nobel Prize winner of literature, Grazia Deledda. Charlotte and Nino met him in Ozieri in March, 2007.

Govanni Maria (Giommaria) Ruffinu, Contadino or Bracciante

He is thus variously described in the Ozieri civil records, peasant or day laborer. Zia always told me that he worked in a vineyard, and I took that to mean he made a living from it, but I never ascertained definitely whether he was able to make a living from a vineyard of his own or whether he merely owned a small, family vineyard as many people did and do, only sufficient for the family or less, or whether he worked for other people in their vineyards. We were recently able to find land records which showed that he did in fact at least own a very, very small vineyard, on the road to Nughedu, but it would certainly not have been sufficient to make a living. Perhaps he had earlier had more land which was sold or inherited by various people, we don’t know.

The word contadino can mean many things, such as a prosperous peasant or farmer, who owns his own land in sufficient quantity and quality to make a good living for his family and enough to pass on to his children so they too can make a good living. Or it could mean a poorer peasant, with little good land who barely survives and may have to augment his income by working for others. Or it could mean a landless day laborer or sharecropper or somebody who rents farm land, there could be any number or combination or gradations.

Bracciante has a more limited range of possible meanings. It comes from the word braccia, arm, which signifies the person makes his living with his arms, with his physical labor. A bracciante may own some land, his own home and a small garden, maybe a vineyard, olives, whatever, but that land goes nowhere near being able to provide for his and his family’s living. He has to work for others. He does not even rent or sharecrop a farm from somebody, as perhaps a man or family might rent an entire farm from somebody unable or unwilling to farm it himself. No, a bracciante is a day laborer, who works for wages for others, hopefully on a long term, even permanent basis, but often only seasonally or actually day to day visiting the piazza in the hope of being hired for the day.

We don’t know why he was variously described by the Ozieri town clerks as contadino and bracciante. Maybe his status changed during the interval. More likely the clerk knew him and made his own assessment. Many people filing documents at the town hall might be unable to characterize their economic and social status and terms may have been used differently by different people at various times. Clearly, though, he was not a prosperous man, and had a large family to feed. It does not look like the move from Nule to Ozieri benefitted Giommaria and the descent from whatever work and status his father Giuseppe Salvatore had, to Luigi, muratore, Girolamo, mastru muratore, to Domenico, painter, was steep.

Giovanni Maria, son of Giovanni (Giuseppe Salvatore) Ruffinu and Mattia Culeddu, was born August 7, 1857, in Ozieri and died approximately 1921.

In 1877 he was subjected to his military fitness exam. The records list his assigned military enlistment date in 1878 and give the name of his assigned unit, the 57th Infantry division. His height is given as roughly 5 foot 1 and a half inches.

On July 1, 1883 he married Antonia Mouschitta Ruzzone. Giovanni Maria is listed as a contadino. His father Giuseppe Salvatore was deceased, but his mother Mattia Culeddu was still alive. They had two children.

His first wife died, and he married again on August 15, 1886, to Pietruccia Lai, age 27, a “domestica,” or maid. He is now listed as a bracciante.

On October 14, 1887 the birth of Giovanni Ruffinu is reported by a Giovanna Lai, and Giovanni Maria is said to be a bracciante. Giovanni, my father, died in 1961 in the United States.

On June 4, 1890 Giovanni Maria himself reported the birth of a daughter, Antonia, in Nughedu, and he describes himself as a contadino. Antonia died in the United States in 1972.

The other children were:

Matteo, born on October 17, 1891 in Ozieri and died on March 15, 1893 in Ozieri, age one.

Luigi, born in Ozieri on February 16, 1893. We have more on him below.

Mattia, born on March 7, 1895, in Ozieri.

Maria, born on May 12, 1896, in Chiaramonte. We don’t know why Pietruccia was in Chiaramonte, perhaps on a visit or to attend a festa and the child was premature and not expected.

Matteo, born on October 7, 1898 and died in 1898 in Ozieri.

We don’t have death records for Giovanni Maria but believe his death was between late 1920/1921, when the ship bringing Antonia, her husband and stepchildren (related Lai from Nughedu), and Maria Meloni, my mother, listed Giovanni Maria as the nearest relative and residing in Nughedu; and mid 1921 when Pietruccia herself went to America and by then her husband was deceased.

Giovanni Ruffinu, American

Strictly speaking, this family saga is restricted to the Sardinia Ruffini, so it will say little about Giovanni. For a fuller description please see Nino’s excellent webpage.

Much of what we know about his Sardinian period comes from Lou Ruffini, who states that as a child his father worked in the vineyards and that his family were sharecroppers. He is believed to have left Sardinia at the age of 16, which would have been in 1903. We unearthed, at the Archivio di Stato in Sassari, two military records, the first, Lista di Leva for males born in 1887 listed him as a bracciante. The second, the Lista d’Estrazione del Mandamento di Ozieri, listed Giovanni Ruffinu as a bracciante, “dichiarato renitente,” on September 3, 1916. This means that he was declared unwilling, disinclined, a defaulter. He had left the country and did not show up to serve in the military.

He is believed to have gone to Buenos Aires where he remained for several years and then went to work on the Panama Canal, where he acquired malaria.

He married Maria Teresa Meloni on July 25, 1921, at Saints Peter and Paul Church in San Francisco. There has always been a family story that when he was in the United States he wrote home to his mother asking that the girl next door be sent to California to become his wife. The two families lived next door to each other and Zia Maria Camboni showed the two houses to me and also to Lou and Barbara.

The dates make this story seem a bit far fetched, certainly they do not allow a childhood romance, as he is presumed to have left Sardinia in 1903 when Maria would have been only one year old. Perhaps in exchanges of letters his mother mentioned the girl next door and that was the basis for the request.

The two had six children.

Luigi Ruffinu, Thief? Or Victim of Unjust Accusations?

Luigi Ruffinu is my uncle, the brother of my father, son of Giovanni Maria Ruffinu and Pietruccia Lai. He was born in Ozieri February 16, 1893, six years after Giovanni.

Until recently we knew nothing about him and I do not remember my father ever discussing him, or for that matter, anything about Sardinia, although I did come along much later than the others. Lou confirms that he seldom spoke about life in Sardinia.

In May of this year, 2012, at the Archivio di Stato in Sassari, we learned some fascinating things. Maria Franca Canu, clerk there who was very helpful in identifying archives of our family, brought out three little books, each one of which was a description of police investigations of Luigi, who had been accused each time of theft. She told us as she brought these out, having looked at them first, that he had also served five months in prison in Sassari but that in several of the investigations he had been found to have not been guilty or not proven to be guilty.

We have copies of these three documents. Also, on the last day of our stay in Sassari and at the Archivio, Maria Franca brought out a much thicker document, from 1914. We did not have time to even glance at it nor make copies but we recently acquired it on a CD.

The three investigative documents, which identify him as a shepherd, and the son of Giovanni Maria Ruffinu and Pietruccia Lai, were:

A 1909 penal proceeding against Luigi for theft from Giuliano Muzzoni from Chiaramonte

A 1911 penal proceeding against Luigi for theft from his “padrone,” Francesco Vargin from Siligo

A 1913 penal proceeding against Luigi, described as a “pastore,” for theft of various items from his “padrone,” Antonio Maria Cuccu, and from Michele Oddi.

This is very disquieting information. It seems that young Luigi (he would have been only 16 in 1909), was a troubled boy. Even if he did not actually steal the items in question, which were personal items of his employers, who were also working shepherds, consisting of clothes and a knife, he must have run afoul of at least four people who accused him wrongly of thefts he did not commit or of minor thefts they would not normally report to the police!

Apparently in two cases it was determined that it could not be proven that he had committed the thefts. I found it very strange that he was accused of such trivial crimes. We would need to know much more about the relationships of the people who were the accusers and the accused, because under normal circumstances one would not expect Sard shepherds to go to the police to report that their young servant shepherd had stolen a knife or a jacket from them! Also under normal circumstances a young servant shepherd, if he were inclined to steal something, would steal somebody else’s sheep, not the shirt off his boss’ back! And be caught doing so! So, something is fishy here, yet it seemed to have happened on three different occasions over a four year period. So this bears further investigation.

The most recently perused document indicates that Luigi served more prison time and was in fact accused, while in prison in Sassari, of verbally and physically abusing a prison guard!

This is a sad tale, much as was the tale of his forebear, Girolamo the master mason of Nule. We don’t know his fate. Was he eligible, after serving a prison term, to serve in the military and did he do so? Did he emigrate? He probably did emigrate, perhaps to Argentina like so many other Sards, such as my father, and, according to recent studies, Giovanni Piras, of Mamoiada, who became Juan Peron!

If nothing else it served to give me a different sort of insight into the environment from which my father departed. One can’t conclude, certainly, that if he had remained his fate would have been similar to that of his brother, but that was the setting and the kind of work that Luigi did and the kinds of contacts and situations in which he found himself would have been those of my father. He left that environment for others just as problematic.

That finishes my account of the Saga of the Ruffini in Sardinia. It is a fascinating account, I think. Too bad we lack information on Domenico as a whole, on the details of Girolamo’s last years, and the circumstances of Luigi’s problems. We have a great deal of information, and much more is sure to emerge, regarding Girolamo the painter, and his was quite the success story that can provide us valuable information about the man and his times. There are less happy times that we have gotten only a few clues about and an almost complete void concerning our first known Sard Ruffini ancestor, Domenico. It would be nice to discover more about him.

Afterword

The Neapolitan genealogist located marriage and baptism records in Naples that indicated that the Domenico and Girolamo Ruffini (aka Ruffino, Rufinu) were brothers, born in Naples, to Santo Rufino and Nicoletta Vuovolo or Huovoli, who were married in Naples December 29, 1701. Santo was born in Accumoli, son of Antonio, approximately in 1681. Nicoletta had been born in Naples March 24, 1685.

There children were:

Luigi Antonio Rufino, born February 28, 1704

Geronimo Michel'Angelo Rufino (our Girolamo and note the middle name!), born September 30, 1705

Domenico Antonio Rosario Rufino (presumably not ours, presumably deceased, as another child later is also named Domenico), born January 29, 1708

Giovanna Antonia Serafina Rufino, born June 24, 1710

Camilla Teresa Lisabetta Rufini (sic), born February 11, 1712

Domenico Antonio Gennaro Rofino (sic) (presumably our ancestor), born January 28, 1714

Those were the children of Santo and Nicoletta. Nicoletta died and Santo married Orsola Barracca, May 9, 1723. Their children were:

Gennaro Giro Rofino (sic), born May 14, 1724

Giuseppe Antonio Giacomo Ruffino (sic), born March 16, 1726

Giacomo Gioacchino Nicola Rufino (sic), born July 26, 1728

Anna Maria Irene Rufino (sic), born October 10, 1730

I can't locate any statement from the genealogist to indicate that the first Domenico died and that the second Domenico is our ancestor, although in the genealogical tree that he provided he did use a larger font for the second Domenico, presumably to indicate that he was our ancestor. Until now I had not thought to ask if he had searched death records for the first Domenico, although I doubt that he did.

Therefore, at this point, we don't have conclusive evidence that the second Domenico is our ancestor. Presumably people could give living children the same first name although I am not aware of the custom. In any case, our ancestor is one of those Domenico, born either in 1708 or 1714, brother of Girolamo and son of Santo and Nicoletta.