Giovanni Ruffini (1807 in

Genoa Genoa ( ; ; ) is a city in and the capital of the Italian region of Liguria, and the sixth-largest city in Italy. As of 2025, 563,947 people live within the city's administrative limits. While its metropolitan city has 818,651 inhabitan ...

– 1881) was an Italian writer and patriot of the early 19th century. He is chiefly known for having written the draft of the

libretto A libretto (From the Italian word , ) is the text used in, or intended for, an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata or Musical theatre, musical. The term ''libretto'' is also sometimes used to refer to th ...

of the opera ''

Don Pasquale ''Don Pasquale'' () is a Gaetano Donizetti opera buffa, or comic opera, in three acts, with an Italian libretto completed largely by Giovanni Ruffini as well as the composer. It was based on a libretto by Angelo Anelli for Stefano Pavesi's oper ...

'' for its composer

Gaetano Donizetti Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti (29 November 1797 – 8 April 1848) was an Italian Romantic music, Romantic composer, best known for his almost 70 operas. Along with Gioachino Rossini and Vincenzo Bellini, he was a leading composer of the ''be ...

''Don Pasquale''

Ruffini had been condemned to death as an enemy of the state and was living in exile in Paris in 1842 when it was suggested to him by Jules Janin (newly appointed director of ''Théâtre-Italien'') that he might offer his services to 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.

Novels

Ruffini wrote seven novels in English: * ''Lorenzo Benoni Or Passages in the Life of an Italian'' (1853), * '' Doctor Antonio: A Tale'' (1855), * ''The Paragreens on a Visit to the Paris Universal Exhibition'' (1856), * ''Lavinia'' (1861), * ''Vincenzo; or, Sunken Rocks'' (1863), * ''A Quiet Nook in the Jura'' (1867) Many of these were published as 'by the author of Lorenzo Benoni' and some sought to raise the sympathy of people in England and France for the struggles of the Italian people during the

Risorgimento The unification of Italy ( ), also known as the Risorgimento (; ), was the 19th century political and social movement that in 1861 ended in the annexation of various states of the Italian peninsula and its outlying isles to the Kingdom of ...

References

Notes See also Christensen, Allan Conrad (1996). ''A European version of Victorian fiction : the novels of Giovanni Ruffini'', Amsterdam : Rodopi Woodhouse, J.R. (1998), eview ofA European Version of Victorian Fiction: The Novels of Giovanni Ruffini, in The Modern Language Review, July Sources *Allitt, John Stewart (1991), ''Donizetti: in the light of Romanticism and the teaching of Johann Simon Mayr'', Shaftesbury: Element Books, Ltd (UK); Rockport, MA: Element, Inc.(USA) * Ashbrook, William (1982), ''Donizetti and His Operas'', Cambridge University Press. *Ashbrook, William (1998), "Donizetti, Gaetano" in

Stanley Sadie Stanley John Sadie (; 30 October 1930 – 21 March 2005) was a British musicologist, music critic, and editor. He was editor of the sixth edition of the '' Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' (1980), which was published as the first edition ...

(Ed.), ''

The New Grove Dictionary of Opera ''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera'' is an encyclopedia of opera. It is the largest work on opera in English, and in its printed form, amounts to 5,448 pages in four volumes. The dictionary was first published in 1992 by Macmillan Reference, L ...

'', Vol. One. London: Macmillan Publishers, Inc. *Ashbrook, William and Sarah Hibberd (2001), in Holden, Amanda (Ed.), ''The New Penguin Opera Guide'', New York: Penguin Putnam. . pp. 224 – 247. * Osborne, Charles, (1994), ''The Bel Canto Operas of Rossini, Donizetti, and Bellini'', Portland, Oregon: Amadeus Press. *Sadie, Stanley, (Ed.); John Tyrell (Exec. Ed.) (2004), ''

The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language '' Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', it is one of the largest reference works on the history and t ...

''. 2nd edition. London: Macmillan. (hardcover). (eBook). * Weinstock, Herbert (1963), ''Donizetti and the World of Opera in Italy, Paris, and Vienna in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century'', New York: Pantheon Books. {{DEFAULTSORT:Ruffini, Giovanni 1807 births 1881 deaths Writers from the Kingdom of Sardinia Writers from Genoa Italian male poets Italian opera librettists Italian male novelists Italian male dramatists and playwrights 19th-century Italian poets 19th-century Italian novelists 19th-century Italian dramatists and playwrights 19th-century Italian male writers Deputies of Legislature I of the Kingdom of Sardinia Deputies of Legislature III of the Kingdom of Sardinia