SPECIANO, CESARE. - Bishop and nuncio, b. at Cremona in 1539, d. there on 20 Aug. 1607.
First canon of the Milanese Metropolitan church with s. Carlo Borromeo, of whom he was a close friend. Sent to Rome, he held various offices; then Pio V appointed him consultant to the nunciature in Madrid, and Gregorio XIII created him bishop of Novara in 1584. He was subsequently nuncio to Filippo II for two years, and in 1591 Gregorio XIV transferred him to the bishopric of Cremona.
Shortly thereafter Clemente VIII sent him to Prague as legate to Emperor Rodolfo II, where he remained from 1592 to 1598, carrying out intensive activity for ecclesiastical instruction and for the conversion of the Utraquists and Hussites. Having returned to Cremona, he devoted himself to the care of souls and founded a Jesuit college. He wrote a work (Propositioni christiane) printed by Muratori in 1735.
BIBLI: Ughelli, IV, pp. 617 and 726; Pastor, X and XI, V. indici; N. Mosconi, Le Propositioni cristiane morali e civili di C. S., in Conversium, 3 (1931), pp. 347-63; id., La nunziatura del cremonese C. S. negli anni 1586-88 alla corte di Filippo II, Cremona 1939.