User:Jim Carter/Hermine Speier

Biography
Hermine Speier was born in 1898 in a Jewish-German family in Frankfurt, Germany. After coming to Rome from Frankfurt in 1928, archaeologist Speier was hired by Pope Pius XI and brought her to Vatican in 1934, to put Pope Pius XI's museums photographic archives in order. Subsequently Speier's dedication became those Vatican Museums. According to Rodari, an artist, she was a "woman who was full of life and vitality"; At that time, she was a new and atypical personality in Vatican's world. She was acquainted by some of the well known figures of that time which include Oriol Schädel, the Libreria Herder German publishing house's director in Rome. And Gudrun Sailer, journalist of Vatican Radio's the German programme, who gave a detailed summary to the National Geographic Channel's documentary, "Vatican: Hidden World" about the life of Speier.

Ludwig Curtius, who was the director of the German Archeological Institute in Rome; later, was dismissed from the directorship role by Nazis for relationship with non-Aryan people, was Speier's teacher. It was through Curtius' recommendation to the Director General of the Vatican Museums, Bartolomeo Nogara, she was hired to set up and reorganize a photography section in the Museums. , there was no fixed contract in the beginning nevertheless Speier herself said, 'pay by the day'. The huge pile of thousands of photographs of museum pieces, ancient and non-ancient, gathered over the years are sorted out in an exemplary way by her, however, to make ends meet she was forced to take on other jobs. Other jobs include, giving lessons and reading aloud to the professor of ancient history, Gaetano De Sanctis, who had impaired eye vision. She used to reside in an apartment near Sant'Onofrio on the Janiculum.

Speier had to move to the Catacombs of St Priscilla in October 1943 on the Via Salaria and stay with nuns there due to the Nazi's violent aggression against Rome's Jewish community. The place acted as a hiding place for Speier and other evaders. In case of a requisition, it proved to be safe as Speier and others could escape the building into the nearby catacombs through a secret passage.

As the second world war ended, Speier who also goes by the name Spinnie among her German friends, converted to Catholicism. Breaking all the relation with Speier, her family scattered between the United States and England.

Speier died in 1989 at the age of 91 in Montreux, Vaud, Switzerland. She was interred in the Campo Santo Teutonico, Vatican City.

Early life
She attended Victoria School (now Bettina School) which is a private girl's preparatory school. At first she did not study archaeology but insterested to take classes in German Studies, Philosophy and History, however, everything changed as Speier attended her first archaeology lecture in the summer of 1919. The lecture was given at Universität Gießen by Gerhard Rodenwalt. She changed her major subject to archaeology accompanied by a double minor in Ancient History and Classical Philology after transferring to the University of Heidelberg. She graduated from the university in 1925 while Ludwig Curtius was archaeology's professor there. After graduation she initially worked with Bernhard Schweitzer as an assistant until 1928 at Königsberg. Curtius recruited her in charge of the photographic archive in Deutsches Archäologisches Institut at Rome where Curtius was the Director then. At the time of her appointment the photographic archive was still under construction. Then Director-General of the Vatican Museums, Bartolomeo Nogara, when offered Speier the chance to build a photographic archive, she left her job at Deutsches Archäologisches Institut in 1934. The Vatican Museums' photographic archive slowly grew over the years. She also worked with Filippo Magi, archaeologist, on the Etruscan and Roman exhibits alongside her duties as the photo archive's curator. In 1967, Speier retired from her position. Few of her distinguished works include, the excavations at the Basilica of St. Peter and the horse-head from basement rooms of the Vatican Museums. Beside this, she also served as a editor. She written about her own career at the age of 75 that, "The fascination involved in our work applies to two aspects of my life. The first was that of the actual job: a life with and for the artifacts. The other was the lively contact with the countless people who came to the Museum with questions, requests, problems, collegial exchanges, new discoveries, etc.; one cannot help but notice both."