LUDOVICO DI GRANATA (Luís de Granada). - Dominican preacher, writer, and Spanish theologian, born in Granada in 1504, died in Lisbon on 31 December 1588.
From Granada he was sent in 1534 to Córdoba to restore the local convent of Escalaceli, of which he became prior. For ten years, from 1545 to 1555, he was also prior in Palma del Río and Badajoz. In April 1556 he was elected provincial of Portugal, where he spent the rest of his life, mostly in Lisbon. He was confessor and advisor to the regent Catherine, widow of John III, and to the Infante Don Henry, cardinal-archbishop of Évora and king of Portugal (1578–80). A close friend of Bl. John of Ávila, he later wrote the first biography of him.
Even while provincial, he had been proposed by Queen Catherine for the archbishopric of Braga, which he instead secured for the Venerable Bartholomew (v.) de Martyribus. The last decade of his life was darkened by the deaths of the Regent (1578) and King Don Henry (1580), by the intrigues that brought Philip II, king of Spain, to the throne of Portugal (1580), and finally by the malicious deception of a false stigmatic, once his penitent.
L. di G. left a vast literary output, especially in ascetical and preaching works, which were widely translated into foreign languages and frequently reprinted in complete editions (cf. M. Llanza [V. BIBLICA.]). He is rightly considered the foremost sacred orator of Spain, who gave Castilian speech sonority and magnificence, and one of the first writers of ascetical theology to formulate a method of prayer for the laity, leading them to the practice, so beneficial, of meditation. He also wrote in Latin and Portuguese. Among his works are: *Libro de la oración y meditación*... (Salamanca 1554); *Guía de pecadores*... (Lisbon 1555–1556); *Introducción al símbolo de la fe* (Salamanca 1583, a major apologetic work); the sermon collections *Concionum de tempore* (4 vols., Lisbon 1575–76); *Concionum de praecipuis sanctorum festis* (2 vols., ibid. 1576); *Collectanea moralis philosophiae* (3 vols., ibid. 1571); and others.