CASTANIZA, JUAN. - Spanish theologian and preacher, Benedictine, b. in Villadiego (diocese of Burgos) ca. 1545, d. in Salamanca in 1599. In 1563
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CASTANIZA JUAN - CASTELGANDOLFO
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he took monastic vows in the abbey of S. Salvatore de Ona. Appointed by his superiors as general preacher, he became preacher at the court of Philip II. He was also confessor to Cardinal Quiroga and later his executor.
To C. cannot be attributed the *Spiritual Combat*, whose authorship has been definitively claimed for Scupoli, but C. had made a Latin translation of it for the use of novices under the title *Pugna spiritualis*, whence arose the mistaken attribution.
In 1583 in Salamanca he published the *Life of St. Benedict*, translated from Book II of St. Gregory’s *Dialogues*, to which, besides the lives of Sts. Maurus and Placidus, is added a noteworthy appendix on the *Approbación de la Regla de S. Benito en algunos concilios*... with a catalogue of the princes, doctors, and saints who have distinguished the Order of St. Benedict. In the *Life of St. Romuald* (Madrid 1597), translated into Italian and French, the author offers a clear exposition of Benedictine spirituality; moreover, his mystical doctrine is further known from the notes to his edition of the works of St. Gertrude: *Insinuationum divinae pietatis lib. V, in quibus vita et acta sanctae Gertrudis*... *continentur. Accessere nunc denuo Exercitia ab eadem virgine composita*... (Madrid 1577). The edition was later translated into Spanish under the title *Practica spiritualis* (ibid. 1599).