The phrase is frequently used to describe a secular work, rewritten with a religious overtone, or a secular topic recast in religious terms using metaphors and symbolism.
These types of adaptations were most popular during the 16th and 17th centuries, the Golden Age of Spanish literature.
[1] Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo, a Spanish literary scholar, felt the adaptations were of little note, calling them a short-lived whim of the pious.
It took Dámaso Alonso's study of their influence on Garcilaso de la Vega's poetry before they were considered significant to the development of Spanish literature.
A lo divino also refers to a style of music that incorporates religious chants.