SPINA, GIUSEPPE. — Cardinal, born on 12 March 1756 at Sarzana, died on 13 November 1828 at Rome. He studied law at Pisa and Rome, where he became a member of the papal court and was appointed by Pius VI as referendary of the Segnatura. Ordained a priest in 1796, he accompanied the Pontiff into exile, served as his majordomo, and in 1799 at Valenza, at the moment of his death, administered the last Sacraments to him.
During the journey from Rome to France, he had been consecrated titular archbishop of Corinth on 30 September 1798. After the death of Pius VI, he returned to Italy and brought to the cardinals gathered in Conclave at Venice the fisherman’s ring of the deceased Pontiff. In 1800, at the request of Napoleon, who had met him the previous year at Valenza on his return from the Egyptian expedition, he went to Paris with the task of conducting negotiations for the conclusion of a concordat. The negotiations, begun with Bernier in November, dragged on unsuccessfully for several months, because whenever an agreement seemed to have been reached, the French government reopened the entire matter, intending by this delaying tactic to secure the greatest possible sum of advantages at the expense of the Holy See and the Catholic Church. S. safeguarded the interests of the Holy See with prudence and tenacity, but when everything seemed to have been concluded, Bonaparte proposed a new text, unacceptable to S., who was bound by precise instructions. Only the arrival in Paris of Cardinal Consalvi brought the negotiations to a successful conclusion. On his return, S. accompanied the remains of Pius VI to Rome. Created a cardinal on 29 March 1802, he was appointed archbishop of Genoa the following May, where he always showed himself solicitous for the welfare of his diocesans, although at times submitting to compromises with the Emperor in order to avoid a breach with the constituted authorities and a consequent deterioration of religious conditions in the diocese. It was probably for this reason that in 1810 he attended the religious marriage of Napoleon and Maria Luisa of Austria, standing among the red cardinals. In 1811 he also took part in the National Council of Paris, where he supported the proposal to request the liberation of the Pope confined at Savona, advising that this request not be made explicitly, although it should be entered in the minutes. After the restoration of the Papal States, S. resigned the archbishopric and in 1816 became legate to Forlì, then, in 1818, to Bologna, where he remained until 1824. During his legation at Bologna, as papal plenipotentiary, he took part in the Congresses of Ljubljana and Verona. At Ljubljana he reaffirmed the neutrality of the Holy See in the Neapolitan question and essentially refused to approve the invasion of the Kingdom by Austria; at Verona, on the other hand, together with representatives of other states of the peninsula, he opposed Metternich’s hegemonic ambitions in Italy, helped to wreck the project for a central police commission, and temporarily thwarted the concentration of the peninsula’s postal service in Austrian hands.