SPAUR, FRANCESCO. — General Preposito of the Somaschi, of a noble Trentine family, originally a secular priest; upon entering the Somascan Order he distinguished himself by his virtue and zeal, governing several orphanages.
He founded in Rome the house of S. Biagio in Montecitorio (1573), to which was attached the care of the orphanages of S. Maria in Aquiro and of the SS. Quattro Coronati. He was the second General Preposito of the Order (1571–74) and, with the favor of St. Charles Borromeo, opened several houses and orphanages and codified the Rules that the Congregation was to follow in accepting and directing orphanages according to the traditions deriving from the founder, St. Jerome Emiliani. After having repeatedly refused the nomination as suffragan bishop of the principality of Trent, he died in a reputation for holiness in 1585.
SPAVENTA, BERTRANDO. — Philosopher, b. at Bomba (Chieti) on 26 June 1817, d. at Naples on 20 Feb. 1883.
A pupil of the Seminary of Chieti, then teacher in the Seminary of Montecassino (1838–40), he was ordained (1840) and settled in Naples, where O. Cocchi directed him to the study of modern philosophy, especially Kant and Hegel. In 1846 he opened a school of philosophy, which the successor of Galluppi (q.v.) at the University had closed because of the ideas he professed. At that time (1848) he became tutor to the son of General Pignatelli and, together with him, went to Florence in 1849. In 1850 he left the clerical state because of a matured philosophical-religious crisis and moved to Turin, where he found a favorable environment for his political sentiments but encountered opposition because of the dissonance between his growing secularism and the religious and philosophical milieu. In these years he published the *Studi sopra la filosofia* (in Riv. ital., 1850, pp. 1–78) and the *Principi della filosofia di G. Bruno* (in Atti dell’Accad. di filo. italiana, Genoa 1854; reprinted in *Saggi di critica filosofica, politici, e relig.*, Naples 1867, pp. 139–75). He lived by his work as a publicist, writing for newspapers and journals, and took a stand against Catholic thought on the freedom of teaching (the writings published in 1851 in *Il Progresso* were collected by G. Gentile in the volume *La libertà d’insegnamento*, Florence 1920). He also polemicized against *La civiltà cattolica* with articles in *Il Cimento* and in the daily *Il Piemonte* (collected by Gentile under the title *La politica dei Gesuiti nel sec. XVI e XIX*, Rome 1911). After brief teaching in Modena and Bologna, he obtained the chair of philosophy at Naples. There he developed his thought by expounding Hegel (writings collected by Gentile in the volume *Scritti filosofici*, Naples 1900) and systematizing his own speculative viewpoint in the (unfinished) volume *Principi di filosofia* (ibid. 1861; supplemented and reprinted by Gentile under the title *Logica e metafisica*, Bari 1911) and in studies on the ethics of Hegel (reprinted by Gentile under the title *Principi di etica*, Naples 1904). He also wrote on Bruno and Campanella (*Rinascimento, Riforma e Controriforma*, Venice 1928), on Gioberti (*La filosofia del Gioberti*, 2nd ed., Naples 1883), and especially the studies collected by Gentile in the volumes *Da Socrate a Hegel* (Bari 1905) and *La filosofia italiana nelle sue relazioni con la filosofia europea* (ibid. 1908; new school ed. by G. Gentile, Florence 1937; by G. Tarozzi, Turin 1937; by E. Vigorita, Naples 1938). A member of the Superior Council from 1861 and deputy to Parliament in the 10th, 11th, and 12th legislatures, S. in the final period of his life founded the Neapolitan journal of philosophy and letters *lottando contro l’indirizzo positivistico* denying metaphysics (cf. *Esperienza e metafisica*, ed. D. Jaja, Turin 1888).
S. aimed to rethink Hegel critically (q.v.) and at the same time to renew dialectic by valorizing human thought, understood not as the point of arrival but as the present starting point from the first category of logic. Hence his singular deepening of Hegelian logic, also in relation to a conception of experience capable of transcending the partial viewpoints of Hegelianism and positivism (q.v.). He acknowledged the necessity of metaphysics (with which Kantian thought is to be integrated); but metaphysics does not mean transcendence, rather an affirmation of the transcendent. S.’s position was often polemical and recreative rather than original; nevertheless, his considerable influence on Gentile’s actualism (q.v.) is to be noted. He intended to reinsert Italian philosophy into European philosophy: maintaining its originality and rationality and clarity of its efficacy in European thought since the Renaissance, in which Bruno would prefigure Spinoza, Campanella Descartes, while Vico would substitute for the metaphysics of being the metaphysics of mind. Italian philosophy attained new prominence in the 19th century, though it underwent the influence of German thought, with Galluppi “a Kantian despite himself,” Rosmini, discoverer of “the unity of the spirit,” and Gioberti.