GIULIANO da SPIRA (Theutonicus). — Franciscan man of letters and musician, b. at Spira at the end of the 12th century, d. at Paris ca. 1250. He was a celebrated singing master at the court of France before becoming a Friar Minor (ca. 1225); he probably took part in the General Chapter of Assisi in 1227 and was associate of the provincial of Germany (fra' Simone Anglico), then returning to Paris, where he lived for the most part (there he held the office of “corrector,” or master of reading for the friars in choir and at table, and perhaps also taught singing at the conventual Studium).
Praised by historians for his literary and musical expertise and for the holiness of his life, G. composed the rhymed offices, “in littera et cantu,” of s. Francesco and s. Antonio, with the hymns and responsories, as well as a life of s. Francesco in elegant prose (Ad hoc quorundam, 1232–33), which follows faithfully the first Tommaso da Celano (v.). The “second,” or “anonymous,” Legenda Antoniana (ca. 1240) is also attributed to him. G. is one of the first representatives of the long succession of Franciscan poets and musicians who followed one another through the centuries; the melodies of the Spirensis are likewise judged by contemporary critics to be of great value for their originality, refinement, and structural solidity, superior to the decadent forms of his time.