RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Speyer Spina
writings, such as " The Benefit of Christ's Death," " Doctrine Old and New," and " Summary of Sacred Scripture," which instilled in him doubt as to the Roman Catholic teachings on purgatory, veneration of the saints, etc. With others he was arraigned before the inquisition at Venice; and his trial came off between May 24 and June 20, 1548. The minutes of the trial are still extant in the archives at Venice, and are reprinted in Comba's Francesco Spiera (1872) . On the latter day in St. Mark's Spiera made solemn abjuration of his " errors," and subscribed the abjuration, which he then repeated on the following Sunday in Cittadella, after mass in the cathedral. On returning home, so he related it himself, " the Spirit," or the voice of his conscience, began to reproach him for having denied the truth. Amid grounds of comfort that either he or his friends advanced, and a state of despair that grew more and more hopeless, there began a terrible struggle within himself, which soon so affected even his sturdy physique that it gave occasion for conveying him to Padua to be treated by the most celebrated physicians. The treatment was vain, and the conflict, which Vergerio and others witnessed, ended in his death, shortly after his return to his home. That Spiera laid violent hands on himself is later invention. K. Benrath.
Bibliography: C. S. Curio, F. Spier m . . historia, Geneva, 1550 [?| (contains accounts by Curio, M. Gribaldus, H. Scotus and S. Gelvus, with preface by Calvin and apology by Vergerius); P. P. Vergerio, La Historia di M. Franc. Spiera . , [Tubingen], 1551, reprinted Florence, 1883; N. Bacon, Relation of the Fearefull Estate of Francis Spira, London, 1638, very numerous editions, latest apparently Manchester, 1845; F. Laurence, Hist, de Francois Spira, Leyden, 1645; E. Comba, F. Spiera, Episodio delta reforma religiosa in Italia, Rome, 1872; C. Ronneke, Francesco Spiera, Hamburg, 1874; K. Benrath, Geschichte der Reformation in Venedig, pp. 35-36, Halle, 1887; W. Sommerfelt, F. Spiera, ein Unglucklicher, Leipsic, 1896; Cambridge Modern History, ii. 394-395, New York, 1904.
SPIFAME, JACQUES PAUL: French Calvinist; b. at Paris 1502; executed at Geneva Mar. 23 (or 25), 1566. He was at first a Roman Catholic and, having studied law, became a parliamentary counselor and later a counselor of state. He then suddenly took orders and was made canon, as well as chancellor of the University of Paris, etc., besides accompanying the cardinal of Lorraine to the Council of Trent as his vicar-general. In 1548 he was consecrated bishop of Nevers, but eleven years later resigned his see in favor of his nephew and retired to Geneva, where he soon professed open allegiance to Protestantism. This step was clearly due in great measure to his adulterous relations with Catharine de Gasperne, whom he had induced to abandon her husband, and with whom he lived after the latter's death. To legitimate the two children of this union, Spifame pretended to reveal the state of affairs to the council and consistory of Geneva, alleging that his orders had prevented him from marrying the woman, and that he had been forced to leave Paris because of his fear of persecution. The union was declared legitimate on July 27, 1559, and Beza and Calvin readily accepted him as pastor, so that in the following year he became minister at Issoudun. Other congregations soon desired his services, among them his old city of Nevers, but
though Calvin urged him to accept this post, Spifame was next found in Bourges and Paris. With the outbreak of the first religious war he became a still more important figure, particularly at the princes' diet at Frankfort (Apr.-Nov., 1562), where he was the envoy of Conde\ While returning to France, he came into the midst of military operations, and until the concluding of the Treaty of Amboise (Mar. 19, 1563) was civil governor of Lyons. He then went back to Geneva, where he had meanwhile been elected to the Council of Sixty, and in Jan., 1564, he accepted the invitation of Jeanne d'Albret, queen of Navarre, to visit Pau to arrange her affairs. Here he committed the astounding indiscretion of declaring that her son, Henry IV., was the offspring of adultery, and in Apr., 1565, he returned to Geneva. Suspicions now began to cluster around him; he was supposed to be intriguing with France, either to become bishop of Toul or to be made controller of finances; his nephew, who knew the true story of his relations with Catharine de Gasperne, declared his two children incapable of inheriting; and he was formally charged with insulting the queen of Navarre. On Mar. 11, 1566, he was imprisoned, especially as there were rumors that he had forged papers attesting a common-law union with Catharine de Gasperne in 1539 while her husband was still alive. Investigation proved the falsity of his documents, and though he pleaded that his adultery was outlawed and denied all other charges brought against him, his acts of forgery were deemed by the council to be sufficient reason to condemn him to be beheaded. (EuGEN LACHENMANN.) Bibliography: The account of the trial and confession of Spifame was printed at Geneva, 1566. Consult further: T. Beza, Hist, ecclesiastique des eglises reformees . de France, ii. 156 sqq., Geneva, 1580, new ed. by J. W. Baum and A. E. Cunitz, 3 vols., Paris, 1883-88, also ed. P. Vesson, 2 vols., Toulouse, 1882-83; Calvin, Opera, vols, xviii.-xxi. passim; J. Spon, Hist, de Geneve, vol. ii., Geneva, 1730; J. Senebier, Hist, litteraire de Geneve, i. 384-385, ib. 1786; E. and E. Haag, La France protestante, ix. 309 sqq., Paris, 1859; Bulletin de la societe de I'hist. du protestantisme francais, ix. 276-277, xii. 483, xlviii. 228 sqq.; Lichtenberger, ESR, xi. 674.
SPINA, spi'na, ALFONSO DE: Spanish anti- Jewish and anti-Mohammedan apologist of the fifteenth century; d. at Orense (115 m. s.w. of Leon), Galicia, 1469. Entering the Franciscan order, he became rector of the University of Salamanca, and in 1466 was consecrated bishop of Orense. He is generally, and probably justly, held to be the author of the anonymous Fortalitium fidei contra Judceos, Saracenos aliosque Christiana fidei inimicos (n.p., 1487 and often), which, according to its preface, was written by a Franciscan teacher at VaUadolid in 1458. The work is in four books: the first proving the messiahship of Jesus from the fulfilment of prophecy; the second dealing with heretics and their manifold punishments; the third attacking the Jews; and the fourth polemizing against the Mohammedans, with an interesting, though one-sided, account of the struggles between the Christians and the Saracens. (O. ZocklerI".)
Bibliography: J. A. Fabricius, Delectus argumentorum et
syllabus scriptorum , pp. 575-576, Hamburg, 1725;
R. Simon, Bibliotheque. critique, iii. 316-322. Paris, 1708;
Spinola Spinoza