El Escorial Monastery
The Monastery of El Escorial is a monastery, palace and residence of King Philip II of Spain. It is located near Madrid at the foot of the Sierra de Guadarrama mountains. The architectural complex of Escorial evokes a variety of feelings: it has been called “the eighth wonder of the world”, “a monotonous symphony in stone” and “an architectural nightmare.”
Background
Philip II built the Escorial, fulfilling an oath he took after the Spanish defeated the French army in 1557. This took place on the day of St. Lorenzo. Even the king’s father, dying, expressed a desire to build a church that would become the royal mausoleum, and so the Escorial (Monastery of San Lorenzo del Escorial) combined both a palace, a monastery, and a mausoleum.
.The palace’s huge gray granite walls and austere appearance were a precursor to the architectural style called “desornamentado”, that is, the unadorned style. The somber church and simple royal apartments emphasize the luxury of the art collection owned by the Habsburgs.
.
The main attraction of the church is the magnificent altar and the stunning Crucifixion by Benvenuto Cellini in the chapel. The library, with its vaulted ceiling decorated with frescoes by Tibaldi, houses 40,000 books and manuscripts, and the museum features works by Titian, Tintoretto and Bosch. “The Pantheon of Kings” is a stunning sight. A flight of stairs leads down to an octagonal room, with visitors passing the “pudridero” on the way, a room where the bodies of kings were left to decompose for several years before being placed in the gilded marble sarcophagi that line the walls of the mausoleum.
.
