Spanish preacher and ascetic writer, born of poor parents at Granada in 1504. At five years of age he was left an orphan, but the Conde de Tendilla, alcalde of Alhambra, having accidentally observed his singular intelligence, took him under his protection and had him educated with his own sons. At the age of nineteen he entered the Dominican convent of Santa Cruz, Granada, whence he went to the college of St. Gregory, Valladolid. After completing his theological education he was named prior of the convent of Scala Cœli, where he exercised his preaching gifts under the direction of the celebrated orator Juan de Ávila, whom he subsequently rivalled, if he did not surpass him, in eloquence. Having been invited by Cardinal Henry, infanta of Portugal and archbishop of Evora, to Badajoz in 1555, he founded a monastery there, and two years later was elected provincial of Portugal. He was also appointed confessor and councillor to the queen regent, but he declined promotion to the archbishopric of Braga, and on the expiry of his provincial office in 1561 he retired to a Dominican convent at Lisbon, where he died in 1588. Luis de Granada enjoyed the reputation of being the first ecclesiastical orator of his day, and his description of the “descent into hell” is one of the finest specimens of eloquence in the Spanish language. He also acquired great fame as a mystic writer, his Guia de Pecadores, or Guide to Sinners, first published in 1556, being still a favourite book of devotion in Spain, and having been translated into nearly every European language.
His principal other works are Libro de la Oracion y Meditacion, Salamanca, 1567; Introduccion al simbolo de la Fé, Salamanca, 1582; Rhetoricae Ecclesiasticae, sive de ratione concionandi, Libri VI., Lisbon, 1576; Silva locorum communium omnibus verbi concionatoribus necessaria, 1582; and several series of sermons. A collected edition of the works of Luis de Granada was published by Planta at Antwerp, in 1572, at the expense of the duke of Alva, and by Luis Meñozal, Madrid, in 1657, afterwards reprinted at various periods. See preface to this edition of his works; preface to Guia de Pecadores, Madrid, 1781; Biblioteca de Autores Esp., tom, vi., viii., xi.; Ticknor’s History of Spanish Literature; and Eug. Baret, Hist. de la litt. espagnole, Paris, 1863.
