Also known as:
Francis Spira;
Italian: Francesco Spira
SPIERA, FRANCESCO. - Italian Protestant who returned to Catholicism, b. at Cittadella in 1502, d. there in 1548. A lawyer in his city, denounced to the Inquisition of Venice as a holder of heretical books and suspected of heresy, he confessed himself repentant before the Tribunal and made a solemn abjuration in the church of St. Mark in Venice and in the parish church of Cittadella.
According to what spread in Protestant circles, having returned home he is said to have felt an intense remorse for the abjuration he had made, on account of which he is said to have fallen into deep despair, for having thereby committed the unforgivable sin against the Holy Spirit. Despite his friends' appeals to the universality of Grace and the care of physicians at Padua, he is said to have died in despair, indeed, according to some, by suicide.
In the report drawn up by the archpriest of Cittadella, S. is recorded as having died a natural death, and no longer conscious of himself in his last moments. It was Vergerio (v.) who made of the S. case an episode of heretical propaganda; he even said that it had been precisely that case that drove him to abandon the Church; Matteo Gribaldi and Enrico Sesto then wrote about it, claiming to be eyewitnesses of the affair. Calvin took from it the occasion to condemn Italian «Nicodemism», French frivolity and German weakness in the faith.
Bibliography5 worksEpist. di Giorgio Siculo alli cittadini di Riva di Trento contro il mendacio di Fr. S., Bologna 1550; P. P. Vergerio, La Historia di M. F. S
BIBL.: Epist. di Giorgio Siculo alli cittadini di Riva di Trento contro il mendacio di Fr. S., Bologna 1550; P. P. Vergerio, La Historia di M. F. S., s. l. 1551, another ed. in Bibliot. della Riforma, Florence 1883; C. S. Curione, Historia Spieriae, Basel 1555 (with the history of Vergerio, the epistula of Gribaldi, the letter of Calvin, the Exemplum memorabile H. Sesto auctore, and other writings); P. Paschini, Pier Paolo Vergerio il giovane e la sua apostacia, Rome 1925, p. 146 ff.; D. Cantimori, Eretici italiani del Cinquecento, Florence 1940, pp. 58, 61, 64-65, 131.
Bendiscioli, Mario. “Spiera, francesco.” In Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. XI, col. 1121. Città del Vaticano: Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1953. https://azioneromana.com/article/spiera-francesco.
MLA
Bendiscioli, Mario. “Spiera, francesco.” Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. XI, Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1953, col. 1121. Azione Romana, https://azioneromana.com/article/spiera-francesco.
BibTeX
@incollection{ec11_spiera_francesco,
author = {Bendiscioli, Mario},
title = {Spiera, francesco},
booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica},
volume = {XI},
pages = {1121},
note = {Cited by column},
publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico},
address = {Città del Vaticano},
year = {1953},
url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/spiera-francesco}
}
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