SPEZI, PIO. - A Romanist and in particular a scholar of the history and study of the churches of Rome, b. in Rome on 1 Oct. 1861, d. there on 2 Jan. 1940.
A teacher of history successively in the secondary schools of Ceccano, Teramo, Potenza, and Rome, for more than 40 years he devoted all his energy to gathering, with a vigorous scientific method, material to serve for the compilation of a complete bibliography relating to the churches of Rome, to be used not only for the history of the individual churches that exist and have disappeared, but also for the resolution of problems of topography and toponymy. An essential characteristic of his work was the comparative study of the various surviving catalogues of the Roman churches from the 5th to the 12th century, taking as his basis the four fundamental catalogues: that of Cencio Camerario, the Anonymous Frenchman, the Anonymous of Turin, and the catalogue of Signorili. Spezi was thus able to establish, by means of synoptic tables, the settling of the onomastics and topography of each church, and to draw up alphabetical indexes corresponding to the index cards he had compiled, having recourse to all the writings that for any reason dealt with the churches of Rome; the result of this investigation forms the first part of Spezi's bibliography. The second part is formed by the special bibliography; in it there appear, for each church, the various sources and the related studies and information. What Spezi's method of work was could already be discerned in his first publication: Bibliografia metodico-analitica delle chiese di Roma, Saggio della lettera A (Rome 1928; offprint from the Bollettino di bibliografia romana edited by C. Galassi-Paluzzi). After Spezi's death, the first volume was published of: Le Chiese di Roma nei XX secoli del cristianesimo. Bibliografia, topografia toponomastica (ibid. 1940), which comprises the introduction, the sources, and the general bibliography of printed works (pp. 43-233) and of manuscripts (pp. 235-43). Recently Signora Giovannelli-Recchi deposited with the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Archaeology the 34,000 index cards assembled by Spezi.
He was also an eminent scholar of the work of G. G. Belli, of whom he discovered 121 unpublished sonnets among the papers of Msgr. Tizzani (v.) preserved in the Library of the Canons Regular Lateranense in S. Pietro in Vincoli. Among his historical essays, mention is made of Gli agnelli di S. Agnese, in La vita italiana, 2 (1894), and Pio V e i suoi tempi (Rome 1904).