Hermine Speier

Hermine "Erminia" Speier (28 May 1898 in Frankfurt am Main – 12 January 1989 in Montreux) was a German archaeologist. One of the few female archaeologists of her time, she was the first female employee of the Vatican Museums and one of the first professional women to be employed by the Vatican. She was a pioneering contributor to the collections of archaeological photographs and is often credited as being the first archaeological photo-archivist.

Biography Hermine Speier was born on 28 May 1898, in Frankfurt am Main into a wealthy Jewish family. She attended Frankfurt's Viktoriaschule, passing her matriculation examination in Wiesbaden after attending a private school. In the winter semester of 1918/19 she enrolled at the University of Frankfurt, studying history, German literature and philosophy. In the summer semester of 1919 she transferred to the University of Giessen, and in the winter semester 1919/20 continued at the University of Heidelberg. In Giessen, she also attended a teachers' training course and was introduced to classical archaeology at the college run by Gerhart Rodenwaldt. In Heidelberg she changed her major to archaeology. She studied under teachers such as Eberhard Gothein, Friedrich Gundolf, Karl Jaspers, Hermann Oncken, Hans Driesch and Karl Ludwig Hampe. After 1920, when Ludwig Curtius was appointed to the university, he became her most important teacher and patron, helping her to focus on archaeology. Besides Curtius, teachers such as Franz Boll, Alfred von Domaszewski, Karl Meister and especially Bernhard Schweitzer gave her a broad-based knowledge of antiquity.

Early career Speier graduated with a doctorate in archaeology and a double minor in ancient history and classical philology in 1925 under Curtius She was the only woman to achieve a doctorate under Curtius. Pope Pius XI signed her contract, as both a statement against Nazi antisemitism and the taboo of employing women. Hitler's first meeting with Mussolini took place in Rome in May 1938, but Speier was not back in Rome until July. Then in September, she was in the Tuscan town of Chianciano Terme. During this early period of his papacy, Pius XII granted 3,000 visas to Jews, if they had been baptized, to emigrate to Brazil, though the only evidence found linking Speier and Pius XII at this time was, in her correspondence, his congratulatory telegram on her conversion. Throughout 1939 and 1940, Nobile was in the United States and Speier remained in Rome until the summer of 1940, when she took a retreat to Chianciano. After 1940, correspondence between the two was sparse as they feared censors and writing had become increasingly impractical. Hiding in the catacombs saved Speier from the Raid of the Ghetto of Rome on 16 October 1943 in which more than 1,000 Jews were deported to Auschwitz and all save 16 were killed. During this part of the war, the Museum was closed, until the end of September 1944, and many artworks from war-torn areas were shipped to the Vatican for storage. When it reopened, she continued with her work creating a detailed monuments inventory of the Vatican holdings, which resulted in several important finds. In 1946, She held a cultural salon there, inviting guests such as Marie Luise Kaschnitz, who dedicated a poem to Speier; :de:Engelbert Kirschbaum, a noted archaeology professor; Paul Augustin Mayer, a German Cardinal and Oriol Schädel, head of the Library of the Piazza di Monte Citorio, among others of the German and Italian intelligentsia. Speier was an active member of the German Archaeological Institute and the Pontifical Academy of Archaeology. In 1973, she was awarded the Cross of Merit of Germany. She received the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice medal from the Vatican.

Speier died on 12 January 1989 in Montreux, Switzerland, and was buried in the Campo Santo Teutonico, the Vatican's Teutonic Cemetery. Her grave bears a piece of a Tarentum clay relief which she had wanted to publish about as early as 1937 in the Festschrift Corolla Ludwig Curtius. She had been unable to do so as Jews were excluded from the publication. Finally in 1955 she exhibited the piece from her private collection and published Fragment eines tarentinischen Tonreliefs in römischem Privatbesitz (Fragment of a Roman Tarentum clay relief in private property). Her gravestone also bears the inscription Leben ist Liebe (Life is Love).

Selected works