Giovanni Ruffini

Giovanni Domenico Ruffini (1807, Genoa – 1881) was an Italian novelist, poet and patriot of the early 19th century. He is chiefly known for having written the draft of the libretto of the opera Don Pasquale for its composer Gaetano Donizetti and the novel Doctor Antonio, which helped to spread in Europe the Italian Risorgjmental situaton.

In 1833 Ruffini had been condemned to death along with his brother Jacopo as enemies of the state for their patriotic ideas inspired by Giuseppe Mazzini. His brother died in mysterious circumstances while being interrogated by police. Later Giovanni went to exile and escape death. He begun travelled all across Europe. In 1843 he went to Paris and begun to work for Donizetti as a librettist . Donizetti told him exactly what he required for his latest opera project, Don Pasquale, but not that he intended to re-use music already written for other purposes. Ruffini duly wrote the draft libretto from the original text dating back to 1810, but Donizetti changed so much of Ruffini's version that librettist became angry and refused to allow his name to be mentioned in the programme for the première at the Théâtre Italien in Paris 3 January 1843.

Although Ruffini refused acknowledgement of his work for the libretto, Donizetti paid him 500 francs, which was competitive for both the length and the genre at the time. Ruffini also reportedly enjoyed working with Donizetti in the early stages of their collaboration, though he wrote to family and friends that the composer continually pressed him to work faster.

In 1855 he published the novel Doctor Antonio, his greatest commercial success, an apparently straighforward XIX centuy novel which actually had the intention to denounce the social and political situation just before the Italian independence and spread the Risorgimental ideas in Europe. He later published Lavinia (1959) and Vincenzo (1863), his last work. Saddened by the numerous premature family's losses he never wrote anything since, and return in Liguria, where he died in 1881.