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 the Spanish ecclesiastical archives in order to discover ancient codices concerning Gregorian chant, he fulfilled this task with Father Cassano Rojo and published ¿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 in the time of Filippo 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); together with several other works, he also compiled the Indice del Archivo de la embajada cerca de la S. Sede (ibid. 1915). Upon Guépin’s death, he became abbot of Silos in 1919. The care of the abbey did not, however, divert him from his beloved studies, and he continued to concern himself, without distinction and with equal mastery, with the editing of medieval sources and with Spanish events 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 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.