SPAUR, FRANCESCO. — Superior general of the Somaschi, of a noble family from Tridentum, formerly a secular priest; after entering the Somaschi Order, he distinguished himself through virtue and zeal, governing several orphanages.
He founded in Rome the house of S. Biagio in Montecitorio (1573), to which responsibility for the orphanages of S. Maria in Aquiro and of the SS. Quattro Coronati was attached. He was the second superior general of the Order (1571–74) and, with the support of s. Carlo Borromeo, opened several houses and orphanages, and codified the Rules that the Congregation was to observe in accepting and directing orphanages according to the traditions originating with the founder, s. Girolamo Miani. After repeatedly refusing appointment as suffragan bishop of the principality of Trento, he died in a reputation for holiness in 1585.
A student at the Seminary of Chieti, then a teacher at the
Seminary of Montecassino (1838–40), he received
Holy Orders (1840) and settled in Naples, where O. Co-
lecchi directed him toward the study of modern philo-
sophy, especially Kant and Hegel. In 1846 he opened
a school of philosophy, GALLUPPI, PASQUALE (v.)
at the University had closed because of the ideas professed by S.
He then (1848) became tutor to the son of General Pignatelli
and together with him, in 1849, went to Florence. In 1850
he abandoned the priestly habit, as a result of his ma-
turing philosophical and religious crisis, and moved to
Turin, where he found an environment favorable to his
political sentiments, but encountered opposition because
of the dissonance between his growing secularism and the
religious and philosophical environment. During these years
he published Studi sopra la filos. di Hegel (in Riv. ital.,
1850, pp. 1–78) and Principi della filos. pratica di G. Bruno
(in Atti dell’Accad. di filos. italica, Genoa 1854, reprinted
in Saggi di critica filos., politic., e relig., Naples 1867,
pp. 139–75). He lived by his work as a journalist, writing
for newspapers and periodicals, and took a stand against
Catholic thought concerning freedom of teaching (the writ-
ings published in 1851 in Progresso were collected by G. Gen-
tile in the volume La libertà d’insegnamento, Florence 1920).
He also engaged in polemics against La civiltà cattolica,
with articles in 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 a brief period of teaching in Mo-
dena 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 position,
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 Hegel’s ethics
(reprinted by Gentile under the title Principi di etica, Na-
ples 1904). He also wrote on Bruno and Campanella (Ri-
nascimento, Riforma e Controriforma, Venice 1928), on
Gioberti (La filosofia del Gioberti, 2nd ed., Naples 1883)
and, above all, the studies collected by Gentile in the volumes Da
Socrate a Hegel (Bari 1905) and La filos. ital. nelle sue rela-
zioni con la filos. europea (ibid. 1908; new scholastic edition
edited by G. Gentile, Florence 1937; by G. Tarozzi, Tu-
rin 1937; by E. Vigorita, Naples 1938). A member of the
Higher Council from 1861 and a member of Parliament
in the Tenth, Eleventh, and Twelfth legislatures, S. in the
last period of his life founded the Giornale napoletano di filos. e let-
tere, “fighting against the positivist tendency” that denied
metaphysics (cf. Esperienza e metafisica, edited by D.
Jaja, Turin 1888).
S. Hegel (v.) critically and at the same
time renew dialectics by assigning value to human thought,
understood not as the point of arrival but as the point of
departure, present from the very first category of logic. Hence
his singularly profound treatment of Hegelian logic, also in
relation to a conception of experience capable of overcoming
the positivism (v.). He
acknowledged the necessity of metaphysics (with which Kantian
thought must be integrated); but metaphysics does not mean
transcendence, rather the affirmation of the transcendental.
S.’s position was often polemical and clarifying rather than
original; nevertheless, his considerable influence on Gentile’actualism (v.) should be noted. He intended to reinsert Italian
philosophy into European philosophy, while preserving its
originality and national character and clarifying its efficacy
within European thought as early as the Renaissance, in which
Bruno would anticipate Spinoza, Campanella Descartes, while
Vico would replace the metaphysics of being with the meta-
physics of mind. Italian philosophy gained new prominence
in the nineteenth century, while nevertheless undergoing the
influence of German thought, with Galluppi, “a Kantian
against his will,” Rosmini, discoverer of the “unity of the
spirit,” and Gioberti.