Ridolfo II da Varano, signore di Camerino, was a condottiero operating in Italy from the 1360s. His forebears had long held the rocca of Varano on the borderland of the Papal States, controlling a major strategic pass between Umbria and the Marche, a link between Rome and the Adriatic coast. He inherited from Gentile di Berardo da Varano in 1355, and undertook the improvement of the fortifications that protected the commune and its rocca.