Career
He was involved in the attempted take-over of the Milanese convent of Sant"Eustorgio by the Observant friars of the Congregation of Lombardy before becoming master of studies at the Dominican studio in Bologna in 1513-1514. He served as inquisitorial vicar in Modena from 1517-1519, where he was involved in prosecuting witches, and then regent master at South. Domenico in Bologna in the early 1530s. He was appointed (1536) by the Venetian Senate to the chair of theology at the University of Padua.
In July, 1542, he was made Master of the Sacred Palace by Pope Paul III, and during the four years that he discharged the duties of that office he rendered services to the Holy See and to the Fathers of the Council of Trent, regarding many difficult and mooted questions.
As Master of the Sacred Palace, he was said to have wanted to move against Copernicus" De revolutionibus, only stopped by his death. From the year 1518 Spina was engaged in a heated controversy with his famous confrère, Cardinal Cajetan.
Still more harsh was his opposition to Ambrose Catharinus, whom he denounced as guilty of heresy to Paul III about the beginning of the year 1546.
