GRANADA, LUIS DE (1504-1588), Spanish preacher and ascetic writer, was born of poor parents at Granada. He became a Dominican and after studying at Valladolid, was appointed procurator at Granada. Seven years later he was elected prior of the convent of Scala Caeli in the mountains of Cordova, where he became one of the most famous of Spanish preachers. He went to Portugal in and became provincial of his order, declining the offer of the archbishopric of Braga but accepting the position of confessor and counsellor to Catherine, the queen re gent. At the expiration of his provincialship, he retired to the Dominican convent at Lisbon, where he died. His mystical teach ing was said to be heretical, and his famous Guia de Peccadores, which has been translated into nearly every European tongue, was put on the Index together with his book on prayer, in In 1576 the prohibition was removed and his works became much prized by St. Francis de Sales, St. Teresa and St. Peter of Alcantara.
The collected works appeared in 9 vols. at Antwerp in 1578. See L. Monoz, La Vida y virtudes de Luis de Granada (1639) ; P. Rousse lot, Mystiques espagnoles (1867) ; Fitzmaurice Kelly, Hist. of Spanish Lit. (1926).