Michele Rua was born in Turin on 9 June 1837 in a poor neighborhood on the outskirts of Turin. Rua was the last of nine children to Giovanni Battista and Giovanna Maria Rua. His father - the supervisor of a weapons warehouse - died on 2 August 1845. He lived with his widowed mother in their apartment in the warehouse which she was able to keep and where she would begin work. His father was widowed with five children prior to his marriage to Rua's mother.