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.[1]
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[2] 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)[3] 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).[3]
After the earthquake of 1783, his first-born son Giovanni Ruffo rescued 112 paintings and brought them to Scaletta.[3]
Bibliography
edit- (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
edit- ^ "RKD entry".
- ^ "Italian Baroque Art - Antonio Ruffo".
- ^ a b c Giltaij, Jeroen. "A Note on Rembrandt's Aristotle, Alexander, and Homer". Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art. Retrieved 2023-10-25.