Serrano y Pineda, Luciano

SERRANO y PINEDA, LUCIANO. - Spanish Benedictine and historian, b. 7 Jan. 1879 at Castroceniza (Burgos), d. 17 July 1944 at Burgos.

A Benedictine in Sept. 1894, ordained priest in Dec. 1902 and entrusted by Abbot Guépin with a careful inspection of Spanish ecclesiastical archives to recover ancient codices on Gregorian chant, he fulfilled this task together with Fr. Cassano Rojo and published the works ¿Qué es canto gregoriano? (Barcelona 1905) and Música religiosa (ibid. 1906). He then edited the first three volumes of the Fuentes para la historia de Castilla (1906-10). In 1911-15 he studied in Rome the relations between Spain and the Holy See at the time of Philip II, which he published in 4 vols.: Correspondencia diplomática entre España y la S. Sede durante el pontificado de s. Pio V (Rome 1913-14) and, together with several other works, he drew up the Indice del Archivo de la embajada cerca de la S. Sede (ibid. 1915). On the death of Guépin he became abbot of Silos in 1919. The care of the abbey did not, however, distract him from his beloved studies, and he continued to occupy himself, indiscriminately and with equal mastery, with the edition of medieval sources and with Spanish affairs in the 16th century. In his last decades he also took an interest in the history of the abbey (El real monasterio de S. Domingo de Silos. Su historia y tesoro artístico, Burgos 1926) and in that of the bishopric of Burgos (El obispado de Burgos y Castilla primitiva desde el siglo V al XIII, 3 vols., ibid. 1905). He also published: Correspondencia diplomática entre España y la S. Sede (Rome 1914). In 1940 he became a member of the Royal Academy of History of Madrid.

Silvio Furlani