LUDOVICO di GRANATA (LUÍS DE GRANADA). — Spanish Dominican preacher, writer, and theologian, born in Granata in 1504, died in Lisbona on 31 Dec. 1588.
From Granata he was sent in 1534 to Cordova to restore the local convent of Escalaceli, of which he became prior. During the decade 1545–55 he was also prior at Palma del Rio and Badajoz. In Apr. 1556 he was elected provincial of Portugal, where he spent the rest of his life, almost always in Lisbona. He was confessor and adviser to the regent Caterina, widow of Giovanni III, and to the infante don Enrico, cardinal-archbishop of Evora and king of Portugal (1578–80). A close friend of the blessed Giovanni d’Avila, he later wrote his first biography.
While he was still provincial, he had been proposed by Queen Caterina for the archbishopric of Braga, which he instead induced her to confer upon the ven. Bartolomeo (v.) de Martyribus. The last decade of his life was saddened by the deaths of the Regent (1578) and King don Enrico (1580), by the intrigues that brought Filippo II, king of Spain, to the throne of Portugal (1580), and finally by the malicious deception of a false stigmatic, formerly his penitent.
L. di G. left a vast literary output, especially ascetical and homiletic, which received numerous translations into foreign languages and many editions, including complete ones (cf. M. Llanenza [V. BIBLICA.]). He is rightly regarded as the prince of Spanish sacred orators, who gave the Castilian language sonority and magnificence, and as one of the earliest ascetical writers to formulate a method of prayer for the laity, in order to lead them to the highly beneficial practice of meditation. He also wrote in Latin and Portuguese. His works include: Libro de la oración y meditación... (Salamanca 1554); Guía de pecadores... (Lisbona 1555–1556); Introducción al símbolo de la fe (Salamanca 1583, a substantial apologetic work); the sermon collections Concionum de tempore (4 vols., Lisbona 1575–76); Concionum de praecipuis sanctorum festis (2 vols., there 1576); Collectanea moralis philosophiae (3 vols., there 1571), and others.