LUIS DE GRANADA, HAGIOGRAPHER OF BARTOLOMEU DOS MARTIRES: THE CONSTRUCTION OF A MODEL OF EPISCOPAL HOLINESS IN THE TRIDENTINE AGE

The contribution is part of wider research aimed at investigating the biographical/hagiographic writing of Luis de Granada (1504-1588) within the framework of a literary genre that has been attracting the interest of scholars only in recent years, perhaps because it is considered "less important" compared to the more prestigious and distinguished Dominican theological and controversial treatises of the time. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, hagiographic writing continued to be widely practised in the Order of Preachers, and achieved notable results, as documented by a rich literary production that is still little explored. The Vida de Don Bartolome de los Martires Arzobispo de Braga is one of the six biographies written by Granada and, although incomplete - the Spanish Dominican died two years before the Portuguese archbishop - it represents a successful attempt to construct a model of episcopal sanctity, exemplified in the renewed image of the 'virtuous and shepherd' bishop in the Tridentine model and set in the context of a Portuguese church resistant to the attempts of reform made by the Archbishop. However, what stands out in Granada's portrait is the example of a virtuous and apostolic life supported by an intense practice of prayer, inspired by the most recent currents of Spanish spirituality. The more markedly political and ecclesiastical aspects are, however, neglected or barely mentioned. This will not be the case in the subsequent biographies of the saintly Archbishop, written with the clear aim of starting a process of canonisation.