SPIERA, FRANCESCO. – Italian Protestant who returned to Catholicism, born at Cittadella in 1502, died there in 1548. An advocate in his city, denounced to the Inquisition of Venice as the possessor of heretical books and suspected of heresy, he confessed his repentance before the Tribunal and made a solemn abjuration in the church of S. Marco in Venice and in the parish church of Cittadella.
According to what was spread in Protestant circles, on returning home he experienced intense remorse for the abjuration he had made, and consequently fell into profound despair, believing that by doing so he had committed the unforgivable sin against the Holy Spirit. Despite his friends’ appeal to the universality of Grace and the care of physicians in Padua, he is said to have died in despair, or rather, according to some, by suicide.
In the account drawn up by the archpriest of Cittadella, S. appears to have died a natural death and to have been no longer conscious of himself in his final moments. It was Vergerio (v.) who turned the case of S. into an episode of heretical propaganda; indeed, he said that this very case had prompted him to abandon the Church. Matteo Gribaldi and Enrico Sesto later wrote about it, claiming to have been eyewitnesses to the affair. Calvin took the opportunity to condemn Italian «Nicodemism», French levity, and German weakness in the faith.