Ruffi, Anthony De

, the historian of Marseilles, was born there in 1607, and bred to the law. Being appointed counsellor to the seneschalcy of his native place, he practised in that court for some years, and with a scrupulous integrity rather uncommon; for we are told that on one occasion when, by his own neglect, a client had lost his cause, he sent him a sum of money equivalent to that loss. He was a man of learning, and a good antiquary, and employed much of his time in collecting materials for his “History of Marseilles,” which he published in 1642. In. 1654 he was made a counsellor of state, and next year published a life of Gaspard de Simiane, known by the name of the chevalier de la Coste, and about the same time a history of the counts of Provence from 934 to 1480. He died April 3, 1689, aged eighty-two. His son Louis Anthony, who followed similar pursuits, added to his father’s History of Marseilles a second volume, in an edition published in 1696, and illustrated with plates of seals, coins, &c. He was author, likewise, of “Dissertations Historiques et Critiques sur POrigine des Comtes des Provence, de Venaissin, de Forcalquier, et des Vicomtes de Marseille” and in 1716 he published “Une Dissertation. Historique, Chronologique, et Critique sur les Evéques de Marseille.” Both these were intended as preludes to more elaborate works on the subject, which he was prevented from completing by his death, March 26, 1724, in the sixty-sixth year of his age. ¹