Paediatrician, poet and senator in the Postwar Constituent Assembly, and a leading expert in and promoter of the Romagna region’s identity and folk tradition. In 1907, when still a medical student, he founded the satirical paper Pestapevar, an ironic word for “chemist”.

From 1911 to 1914 he edited Il Plaustro. In 1920 he joined forces with Francesco Balilla Pratella and Antonio Beltramelli to found La Pié, a local history magazine focusing on the area’s poetry and culture and aiming to conserve Romagna’s dialect and folk traditions. Still published today, it is a key point of reference for literary life in Romagna. He became editor of the weekly La Voce di Romagna in 1945.

Spallicci is chiefly remembered for having raised the Romagna dialect to the status of a literary language, on a par with any national tongue.