Fray Bernardino de Laredo (1482 in Seville – 1540 in San Francisco del Monte, Sevilla) was a physician and Franciscan mystical writer.
Of noble birth, Bernardino grew up in Seville and became a page to an exiled Portuguese nobleman (Duke Álvaro of Portugal) in that city.
He reputation must have spread, for he is known, on a number of occasions, to have attended King John III of Portugal and his consort, Queen Catherine, sister of the Emperor Charles V. He died, at the friary of San Francisco del Monte, in 1540.
He is most remembered, though, for his spiritual treatise entitled Ascent of Mount Sion (Subida del Monte Sión), a foundational text of recogimiento mysticism.
[7] The second edition of 1538 shows much greater influence by certain authors than Laredo had shown previously – in particular of Dionysius, Herp (or Harphius, the fifteenth-century Franciscan of Malines), and Hugh of Balma.
E Allison Peers argues that Hugh of Balma, although only quoted six times in the 1538 edition, is largely responsible for Laredo's shifting of emphasis from the intellectual to the affective in mental prayer, a change which causes him to reduce the number of quotes from Richard of St Victor, whose intellectual approach now seems imperfect.