Antonio Ruffo
{{Short description|Sicilian nobleman}}
File:Ritratto del Principe Antonio Ruffo.jpg
Antonio Ruffo (1610 or 1611 – 16 June 1678) was an important Sicilian politician, nobleman, patron and collector from the Ruffo di Calabria family. He was probably born in Castle Bagnara or Messina and died in Messina.{{Cite web|url=https://rkd.nl/en/explore/artists/440106|title=RKD entry}}
His collections included coins, silverware, paintings by Anthony van Dyck (Saint Rosalie Interceding for the Plague–Stricken of Palermo), Paul Bril, Jacob Jordaens, Abraham Casembroot{{Cite web|url=https://baroque.trinity.duke.edu/items/show/287|title=Italian Baroque Art – Antonio Ruffo}} and others, several Rembrandt etchings and tapestries of The Life of Achilles to designs by Rubens. He commissioned three paintings from Rembrandt (Aristotle with a Bust of Homer, Alexander the Great and Homer Dictating his Verses){{Cite web |last=Giltaij |first=Jeroen |title=A Note on Rembrandt's Aristotle, Alexander, and Homer |url=https://jhna.org/articles/note-rembrandt-aristotle-alexander-homer/ |access-date=2023-10-25 |website=Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art |language=en-US}} and corresponded with Artemisia Gentileschi, Cornelis de Wael and Abraham Brueghel.
He was also the owner of Erminia and the Shepherd (Guercino, 1649), The History of Pythagoras: Buying Fishes and The History of Pythagoras: Coming out of the Cave (Salvator Rosa).
After the earthquake of 1783, his first-born son Giovanni Ruffo rescued 112 paintings and brought them to Scaletta.
Bibliography
- (in Italian) Vincenzo Ruffo, Galleria Ruffo nel secolo XVII in Messina (con lettere di pittori ed altri documenti inediti), Bollettino d'Arte 10 (1916): 21–64, 95–128, 165–92, 237–56, 284–320, 369–88.
- (in Italian) Vincenzo Ruffo, La Galleria Ruffo (appendice), Bollettino d'Arte 13 (1919): 3–16; and Corrado Ricci, Rembrandt in Italia (Milan, 1918), 7–53.
- (in Italian) Rosanna De Gennaro, Per il collezionismo del Seicento in Sicilia: L'inventario di Antonio Ruffo principe della Scaletta, Pisa, 2003.
- (in Italian) Alessandra Primicerio, Antonio Ruffo principe della Scaletta, Pubblisfera, 2021.
References
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Category:Politicians from Messina
Category:Year of birth uncertain
Category:Kingdom of Sicily people
Category:Italian art collectors