GARCÍA DE CISNEROS, G. – A Spanish Benedictine monk, born in Cisneros (León) in the second half of the 15th century. He was a cousin of the great Cardinal Cisneros. He embraced the monastic life in the monastery of St Benedict, known as “El Real,” in Valladolid, the mother-house of the reformed Benedictine Congregation of Valladolid, to which most of the Benedictine monasteries of Spain belonged. He later became abbot of Montserrat in Catalonia.
He wrote: *Ejercitatorio de la vida espiritual* (Montserrat, 1500); *Directorio de las horas canónicas* (ibid., 1500); *Compendio breve del Ejercitatorio espiritual* (Barcelona, 1535; reprinted under the care of F. Curiel, ibid., 1912); all of which were reprinted many times and translated into French, English, Italian, and other languages. The author is regarded as a precursor of the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius of Loyola (P. Pourrat, *La spiritualité chrétienne*, III, 6th ed., Paris, 1917, pp. 41 ff.).