ANTONIO DE ARANDA. - Spanish Franciscan theologian of the 16th century, born in Aranda de Duero, died around 1555. He was confessor to Mary, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, and to Joanna, Infanta of Portugal, daughters of Emperor Charles V. In 1529–30 he made a journey to the Holy Land, during which he also visited the Maronites of Lebanon, and was then sent by the Guardian of Mount Sion, Giovanni, on very important business as ambassador to Charles V.
He published a detailed description of the Holy Land in two treatises, carefully analyzed by Röhricht. Tobler gives the following title for it: *Verdadera descripción de la Tierra Santa como estaba en MDXXX* (Alcalá de Henares 1531), which was reprinted several times. He also published in Alcalá the *Lives of St Amaro and St Mary Magdalene*; *Las siete palabras que se leen en el Evangelio haber dicho N. Señora* (1552 and 1557); *Monte Calvario* (1552); and a *Life of Fr. Francisco Ximenes de Cisneros*, which Álvaro Gómez de Castro used for his biography of the famous cardinal archbishop of Toledo.
ANTONIO DE ARANDA
Bibl.: T. Tobler, *Bibliographia Geographica Palaestinae*, Leipzig 1867, p. 70; Marcellino da Civezza, *Storia universale delle Missioni Francescane*, VII, Rome 1881, pp. 400 ff.; R. Röhricht, *Bibliotheca Geographica Palaestinae*, Berlin 1900, p. 181; J. H. Sbaralea, *Supplementum ad Script. Ord. Min.*, I, Rome 1908, p. 73.