Tel. 91- 890 59 04
Train: from Atocha or Chamartin, Madrid
Bus: 661, 664 from Moncloa, Madrid
Open: Tue- Sun
Closed:
public holidays
Entrance Fee: 10 Euro
The Royal Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial is a complex
that includes a royal palace, a basilica, a pantheon, a library, a
school and a monastery. It is located in the Spanish town of San
Lorenzo de El Escorial, in the
Community of Madrid, and was built in the 16th century between
1563 and 1584.
The palace was the residence of the Spanish
royal family, the basilica is the burial place of the kings of Spain
and the monastery – founded by monks of the Order of San Jerónimo –
is currently occupied by friars of the Order of San Agustín. It is
one of the most unique Renaissance architectures in Spain and
Europe. Located in San Lorenzo de El Escorial, it occupies an area
of 33,327 m², on the southern slope of Mount Abantos, at an altitude
of 1,028 m, in the Sierra de Guadarrama. It is managed by National
Heritage.
Also known as the Monastery of San Lorenzo El Real,
or simply El Escorial, it was designed in the second half of the
16th century by King Philip II and his architect Juan Bautista de
Toledo, although later Juan de Herrera, Juan de Minjares, Giovanni
Battista Castello El Bergamasco and Francisco de Mora. The king
conceived a large multifunctional, monastic and palatial complex
that, shaped by Juan Bautista de Toledo according to the Universal
Trace paradigm, gave rise to the Herrerian style.
Since the
end of the 16th century, it has been considered the Eighth Wonder of
the World, both for its size and functional complexity and for its
enormous symbolic value. Its architecture marked the transition from
Renaissance plateresque to debonair classicism. Huge work, of great
monumentality, is also a receptacle of the other arts. Its
paintings, sculptures, hymnals, scrolls, liturgical ornaments and
other sumptuary, sacred and courtly objects make El Escorial also a
museum. Its complex iconography and iconology has received the most
varied interpretations from historians, admirers and critics. El
Escorial is the crystallization of the ideas and will of its
promoter, King Felipe II, a Renaissance prince.
On November
2, 1984, UNESCO declared the Monastery and Site of El Escorial as a
World Heritage Site. It is one of the main tourist attractions of
the Community of Madrid. The monumental complex receives more than
500,000 visitors a year.
1557. Victory over the French in the battle of San Quentin.
1558.
Emperor Carlos I dies in Yuste, changing in his will his wish to be
buried in Granada by requesting his son to create an ex novo building
for his tomb, in a different place than his parents and his
grandparents. Felipe II appointed a multidisciplinary commission
(doctors, architects, stonemasons, etc.) to find the most suitable
location in the Sierra de Guadarrama, the geographical center of the
Iberian Peninsula.
1559. On July 15, the king appointed Juan Bautista
de Toledo royal architect from Ghent and entrusted him with the
direction of all the works of the Crown.
1560. The commission seeks
alternatives for the location of the monastery, considering among other
locations Guisando, Aranjuez, Manzanares and La Alberquilla and La
Fresneda, in the vicinity of El Escorial. In November, the current
location was chosen, barely 50 kilometers from Madrid, in the vicinity
of the Blasco Sancho Fountain, close to El Escorial —at that time a
small village in the Community of Villa y Tierra de Segovia— to build
the building. The area had abundant game and firewood, good quality air
and water, and granite and slate quarries in the vicinity.
1561. This
year was key to the history of El Escorial:
The monarch moved the
capital of Spain from Toledo to Madrid.
He entrusted the Monastery of
El Escorial to the Hieronymite monks. Traditionally, the Hispanic
monarchy had been closely linked to this religious Order.
Juan
Bautista de Toledo begins the general design of the Monastery: the one
known as the "Universal Trace".
1562. Felipe II began to acquire
the adjoining lands to make the surroundings of the Monastery a hybrid
of royal and abadengo territory, where recreational, agricultural and
hunting uses could be made compatible.
1563. In February, Juan de
Herrera and Juan de Valencia joined the project as assistants. On April
23, the feast of Saint George, the first stone of the Monastery was laid
on the foundations of the convent refectory, under the Prior's chair, on
the southern façade.
1567. On April 22, Felipe II signed the Letter
of Foundation and Endowment of the Monastery of San Lorenzo de El
Escorial. A few days later, on May 19, after the completion of the
façade of the Jardín de los Frailes, a large part of the dependencies of
the Monastery and the Patio de los Evangelistas, Juan Bautista de Toledo
died.
Between 1567 and 1569, the management of the palatial and
monastic project was in the hands of Giovanni Battista Castello El
Bergamasco, author of the main staircase.
1572. Juan de Herrera, with
an increasingly growing role, assumed the reorganization of the project.
1575. The Cantabrian master stonemason Juan de Nates collaborated with
Diego de Sisniega and Francisco del Río in the works.
1576. Herrera
was appointed royal settler, main plotter, mathematician and engineer of
the works of the Crown, including those of the Monastery. Based on the
Universal Trace designed by Juan Bautista de Toledo, he proposed
solutions that, as the architect Fernando Chueca Goitia explained in
1966, tended towards the simplification and geometricization of the
building. The main variations on the original solution were the
construction of one more floor on the main façade, which regularized the
first staggered solution, the reduction in the number of towers on its
façades and the closure of the Patio de Reyes with the "double façade"
of the church, where the Royal Library was located.
1584. The statues
of David and Solomon are placed on the doorway of the Basilica. On
September 13, the works were officially completed, under the direction
of Francisco de Mora, despite the fact that the Royal Basilica was not
finished. This was completed in 1586 after eleven years of construction.
1807. The Prince of Asturias, the Duke of the Infantazgo and Escoiquiz
hatch a plot, known as the "Conspiracy of El Escorial" to overthrow
Godoy. They are discovered and prosecuted.
1814. After the
vicissitudes of the War of Independence, which led to looting and
exclaustration for the Monastery, the monks of the Hieronymite Order
return. With the reestablishment of the Constitution of 1812 and the
start of the Liberal Triennium, the majority of the monks left the
Monastery between 1820 and 1824. On December 1, 1837, the 150
Hieronymite monks left after the confiscation laws of the ecclesiastical
property. Later, after a failed restoration attempt, a board of secular
chaplains was created.
1885. After two intervals in which it was
occupied by the Piarist Fathers (since 1869 the College, and between
1872 and 1875 full custody of the Monastery) and again by the secular
chaplains, King Alfonso XII hands over the monastery to the Order of San
Agustín . The Augustinians live in the monastery to this day.
The Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial was promoted by Felipe
II, among other reasons, to commemorate his victory in the battle of San
Quintín, on August 10, 1557, the feast of San Lorenzo. This battle
marked the beginning of the planning process that culminated in the
laying of the first stone on April 23, 1563, under the direction of Juan
Bautista de Toledo. He was succeeded after his death, in 1567, by the
Italian Giovanni Battista Castello El Bergamasco and, later, by his
disciple Juan de Herrera. The last stone was laid twenty-one years
later, on September 13, 1584.
The building arises from the need
to create a monastery that would ensure worship around a newly created
family pantheon, in order to comply with the last testament of Carlos I
of 1558. The Emperor wanted to be buried with his wife Isabel de
Portugal and with his new dynasty away from the usual Trastámara burial
places.
The Foundation Charter, signed by Felipe II on April 22,
1567, four years after the start of the works, indicated that the
Monastery was dedicated to San Lorenzo, but without directly mentioning
the battle of San Quintín, probably to avoid citing a war as the reason
for the foundation of a religious building: "it was founded to devotion
and in the name of the blessed San Lorenzo for the particular devotion"
to the king's saint and "in memory of the grace and victory that on the
day of his festivity of God we began to receive”. The "considerations"
cited by the king were gratitude to God for the benefits obtained, for
keeping his Kingdoms within the Christian faith in peace and justice, to
worship God, to bury himself in "a crypt" the king himself, his wives,
brothers, parents, aunts and successors, and where continuous prayers
were given for their souls:
Recognition of the "many and great
benefits that we have received from God our Lord" and "how much He has
served to direct and guide our actions, and our businesses at his holy
service."
For "sustaining and maintaining these our Kingdoms is the
holy Fee and Religion of him, and in peace and in justice."
Because
God likes that they build and found churches "where his holy name is
blessed and praised" and where the religious give an example of faith.
So that "God Our Lord begs and intercedes for us and for the kings, our
predecessors and successors, and for the good of our souls", according
to the order given by the Emperor "in the covecillo that he recently did
he committed to us and remitted what he it touched her grave and the
place and part where her body and that of the Empress and Queen, my lady
and mother, had to be placed and placed».
And so that “continuous
prayers, sacrifices, commemorations and memories are made and said for
his souls.
In short, the king sought to give God a house in which
to praise him and thank him for his intervention in San Quentin,
interceding by the way for his relatives. Felipe II did not want a
church for the faithful, he wanted to give God a house under which to
bury his extended family. Other reasons for founding the Monastery
cannot be neglected either, such as the celebration of Felipe II's first
victory as king, the affront that the mention of the Battle of San
Quentin -which was fought just one hundred and fifty kilometers from
Paris- implied towards France , the veneration of the Spanish martyr San
Lorenzo, at a time when the Reformation attacked the cult of saints and
relics, or the need to create a unifying center for the new faith that
emerged from the Council of Trent.
In July 1559 Juan Bautista de Toledo was called to Spain by Felipe II
to carry out a series of works of great importance for the Spanish
royalty. A royalty that from now on will have a new conception of the
modern state and for which it will be necessary to create a new building
to represent it. Juan Bautista will be considered the first architect of
the Monastery of El Escorial and his traces will lay the foundations of
what will later be the language of Herrera.
The measurements of
the rectangle of the plant, according to what Father Sigüenza pointed
out in 1605, are 735x580 Castilian feet, that is, 205x162 meters. The
total height of the highest point of the cross taken with respect to the
pavement of the church is 95 meters.
In the first instance, it is observed that the first traces that are
preserved by Juan Bautista de Toledo proposed a building with a very
different image from the one that was definitively built: towers in the
center of each of the lateral facades (the traces of the Torre de la
Library are still visible on the façade facing the Garden, since it was
built during the life of Juan Bautista), two towers at the head of the
church and two more towers on the main portal, where the Patio de Reyes
was open and revealed in the background the cover of the Basilica. We
know from the documentation that is preserved from the priors of the
convent that at the beginning only fifty monks were foreseen instead of
the final one hundred, so the original project had a lower height at the
front.
Regarding the plan of the church, the design was resolved
with smaller naves than the current ones, topped with a chapel with a
semicircular apse. Felipe II not being happy with this solution will
call Francesco Paciotto who will advise the monarch that the temple have
a flat apse. Finally, the architect of the definitive solution was Juan
de Herrera, who built a square temple based on the plan of the Vatican
superimposed on a traditional basilica plan with the altar at the end of
the main nave. Herrera is also responsible for the unitary image of the
façades with fewer towers and without steps, which contributed to the
powerful final image of the building.
The final plan of the
building, with only four towers at the corners and the Royal Palace
acting as a "handle", recalls the shape of a grill, for which reason it
has traditionally been stated that this layout was chosen in honor of
Saint Lawrence, martyred in Rome in a grill, since on August 10, 1557,
the saint's feast day, the battle of San Quentin took place. Hence the
name of the complex and the town created around it.
Fernando Chueca Goitia explained the general layout of the building, giving great importance to the proven intervention of the Hieronymite order in the first traces of the work, which would result in the convent nucleus of the church and the main cloister. The main contribution of Juan Bautista de Toledo would have been to add the private and public palaces, integrating them into a symmetrical scheme, much more typical of the Renaissance. This first scheme of a royal palace attached to a monastery was customary among the medieval Hispanic monarchs, and they used it in the monasteries that they used for retreats, mourning and rest. We can find many precedents, such as Santo Tomás de Ávila, Guadalupe, Poblet, Santa Creus or Yuste, among many others.
Actually the architectural origin of its plant is very controversial.
Leaving aside the happy coincidence of the grill, which did not appear
until Herrera closed the main façade with the "false façade" of the
library and removed six of the towers, the plan seems to be based rather
on descriptions of the Temple of Solomon of the Bible and the
Judeo-Roman historian Flavio Josefo. This idea had to be modified due to
the growing needs of the convent and the functions that Felipe II wanted
the building to house (pantheon, basilica, convent, school, library and
palace), Therefore, the initial dimensions of the project had to be
doubled. The statues of David and Solomon flank the entrance to the
basilica, recalling the parallelism with the warrior Carlos I and the
prudent Felipe II. In the same way, two frescoes of Solomon are painted
in the center of the vaults of the Library and the Cell of the Prior,
showing his images of greater wisdom and prudence in government: the
famous episode of the discussion with the Queen of Sheba and the fight
of the two mothers for the son, whom Solomon proposes to split in two.
The idea of evoking the Temple of Jerusalem was therefore not the
main one, as we have seen when listing the founding causes, but neither
was it an arbitrary or simply aesthetic decision. It was the
architectural model used as the project idea, since it indicated the
Temple as Domus Dei, the House of God. The imposing statue of Solomon in
the center of the doorway of the Church makes clear the orthodoxy of the
idea and Philip II's taste for the Old Testament. The king would never
have condoned frivolity or insinuations about his father's grave without
a royal basis.
Many authors, following a famous article by René
Taylor, have sought occult and magical connotations in the comparison
with the biblical building, which seems difficult given the inflexible
religiosity of Philip II. Furthermore, the esoteric connotations of
Solomon's Temple did not appear until two centuries later, with the rise
of Freemasonry. The currently most accepted theory is that the
similarity with the Temple of Jerusalem and the presence of the statues
of David and Solomon on its façade sought to underline the real presence
of God in the Eucharist, an idea denied by Protestants and defended in
the Council of Trent.
The final result is reminiscent of the three domains that Felipe II
had learned to love in his youth in Valladolid, Milan and Brussels: the
rectangular plan with its four corner towers, common in the sober stone
Castilian fortresses, the classic Italian architecture in the basilica
and the portals, and the typical Flemish slate roofs, made in this case
using slate from the quarries of Bernardos (Segovia), whose exploitation
began by order of Felipe II for the construction of the building. The
roofs were renewed by complete in 1968, replacing the wooden beams of
Valsaín and San Rafael pine with iron beams.
The Monastery stands
out for the power of its image, the wise composition of its complex
functional program, the architectural rigor of each of its parts, the
elegance of the architectural articulation between the different pieces,
the careful perfection of its proportions and its rich values. symbolic.
It should also be noted its impressive unity of style and the fact that
it was carried out in the reduced time period of twenty-one years at
that time. The values of the project are order, hierarchy and the
perfect relationship between all the parts of the composition,
integrating monarchy, religion, science and culture in the main axis:
the Main Portal with the statue of San Lorenzo, the Library, the Kings
of Judah, the Basilica and the King's Private Palace. The theatricality
of this route through this great central axis to finally show the
Tabernacle with the Eucharist anticipates the arrival of the Baroque.
The style chosen was that of the Renaissance, very refined and
without the profuse Plateresque decoration. The predominant
architectural order is Tuscan, the simplest of classicism, and the Doric
in the church. Despite its austerity and apparent coldness, the
Monastery of El Escorial was a symbol of the leap between a medieval
Spain and a modern one. Its architecture, the best example of the
Spanish Renaissance and a model of the style called "Herreriano" or
"decorated", cannot leave us indifferent. Felipe II and his architects,
in accordance with their great humanist culture learned in their travels
through Italy, Germany and the Netherlands, opposed the return to Roman
classicism to the overflowing Plateresque of the time. It is one of the
main masterpieces of Spanish architecture, perhaps its most brilliant
page. The fine sensitivity of the south façade should be highlighted,
superior to its imitations of the 20th century in a subject as difficult
as the repetition of so many windows in a single canvas.
Le
Corbusier visited the building, invited in 1928 by García Mercadal, and
praised its architecture, to the point that its similarity with the
Mundaneum project of 1929 has been pointed out. After the celebration of
the Fourth Centenary of the Monastery in 1984, many architectural
details were rediscovered of the building, such as the complex geometry
of the Herrerian spires, the bold flat vault, the beautiful Siamese
chimneys or the ingenious spatial solution of overhead lighting from the
convent lantern. But we must not forget the traditionally recognized
value of El Escorial: the beautiful Patio de los Evangelistas, with its
splendid exercise in bramantism on the central temple, the grandiose
dome with lining and resting on a drum, the colossal staircase of the
convent, and examples of Mannerism in the Basilica and the main façade,
among other samples of great architecture.
The main sections into which the Royal site can be divided are:
Felipe II ceded to the Library of the Monastery the rich codices that
he possessed and for whose enrichment he commissioned the acquisition of
the most exemplary libraries and works both in Spain and abroad. It was
designed by Juan de Herrera, closing the atrium of the Basilica and
unifying the main façade, since Juan Bautista de Toledo placed it in the
missing central tower of the South façade. Herrera also took care of
designing the shelves that it contains. It is located in a large nave 54
meters long, 9 wide and 10 meters high with a marble floor and richly
carved hardwood shelves.
Arias Montano drew up his first catalog
and selected some of the most important works for it. It is endowed with
a collection of more than 40,000 volumes of extraordinary value. In 1616
he was granted the privilege of receiving a copy of each work published
in Spain, although this was never fully accomplished.
The barrel
vault of the ceiling of the library is decorated with frescoes
representing the seven liberal arts, that is: Rhetoric, Dialectic,
Music, Grammar, Arithmetic, Geometry and Astrology. Between the
bookcases hung portraits of various Spanish monarchs, including the
famous Silver Philip (Philip IV in a brown and silver suit) painted by
Velázquez, now in the National Gallery in London. The frescoes on the
vaults were painted by Pellegrino Tibaldi, according to the iconological
program of Father Sigüenza.
Solomon's fame as the wise king par
excellence of the Bible must have conditioned Philip II's decision to
donate his library to the monks of the Monastery to create a Wisdom
Center, instead of distributing it to his other palaces, such as
Aranjuez, Valsaín or the Alcázar of Madrid, and thus donate it only to
his heirs.
The so-called "Palace of the Austrias" occupies the entire mango of
the El Escorial grill and part of the North patio, built on two floors
around the presbytery of the Basilica and around the Patio de
Mascarones. It follows the same architectural scheme of the Palace of
Carlos I in the Monastery of Yuste. Currently only the Royal Rooms and
the Battle Room can be visited. In the private quarters of the King and
Queen you can see important pictorial works from the Spanish school of
the early 17th century, the Italian and Venetian schools of the 16th
century, and the Flemish schools of the 16th and 17th centuries,
including San Cristóbal en el vado de Joachim Skating.
Before the
royal rooms, other rooms are crossed, such as the Ambassadors' Hall,
with interesting exhibits: 17th-century mortars, a table inlaid with
ivory, two sundials on the pavement, two Chinese wooden folding chairs
from the Ming period ( ca. 1570) and the portraits of all the monarchs
of the House of Austria. The impressive marquetry doors, a gift from
Emperor Maximilian II, deserve special mention. The supposed chair-bunk
in which Felipe II made his last trip to the Monastery afflicted with
gout is also on display.
The "Casa del Rey" is made up of a
series of soberly decorated rooms, since it was the place of residence
of the austere Philip II. The royal bedroom, located next to the main
altar of the Basilica, has a window that allowed the king to follow mass
from bed when he was unable to do so due to gout. It is divided into
four rooms: the main room, the study, the bedroom and the luxurious
oratory.
In clear contrast to the austere monumentality of the Palacio de los
Austrias, stands the Palace of the Bourbons. Built to the north of the
Basilica, around the Palace Courtyard, the complex of rooms has its
origins in the time of Felipe II, when the Infantes' quarters (northeast
side of the courtyard), the Battle Gallery (the south, see below) and
the kitchens and service areas (west side).
Under the reign of
Carlos III, this area was inhabited by the then Princes of Asturias.
When they ascended to the throne, in 1788, as Carlos IV and María Luisa
de Parma, they decided to keep their rooms in the same area and not move
to the "Casa del Rey". The new monarchs commissioned a new access
stairway from the architect Juan de Villanueva, which was completed in
1793. The interiors were also adorned with sumptuous tapestries designed
by Bayeu or Goya and rich furniture. Ferdinand VII was the last monarch
to make use of these rooms.
In December 2015, after years of
restoration, the set of 18 halls was opened to the public for free
visits.
Preceded by the Patio de los Reyes, it is the true core of the entire complex, around which the other rooms are articulated.
Juan Gómez de Mora, according to plans by Juan Bautista Crescenzi,
reformed by order of Felipe III the small funerary chapel below the
altar to house twenty-six marble tombs where the remains of the kings
and queens of the houses of Austria and Bourbon rest. with just a few
exceptions.
lockets
Following one of the precepts approved by
the Council of Trent regarding the veneration of saints, Felipe II
endowed the Monastery with one of the largest collections of relics in
the Catholic world. The collection is made up of some 7,500 relics,
which are kept in 507 boxes or sculptural reliquaries designed by Juan
de Herrera and most of them built by the silversmith Juan de Arfe y
Villafañe. These reliquaries take the most varied forms: heads, arms,
pyramidal cases, caskets, etc. The relics were distributed throughout
the Monastery, concentrating the most important in the Basilica. On the
Gospel side, under the protection of the Mystery of the Annunciation of
Mary, all the bones of the saints and martyrs are kept. On the opposite
side, in the Altar of San Jerónimo, are the remains of the saints and
martyrs. The sacred remains are kept in two large cabinets, decorated by
Federico Zuccaro, which are divided into two bodies; they can be opened
at the front, to be exposed to worship, and at the back, to gain access
to the relics. At present they remain closed, exposing themselves only
on All Saints' Day.
The monastery proper occupies the entire southern third of the
building. It was originally occupied by Hieronymite monks in 1567,
although since 1885 it has been inhabited by the cloistered Augustinian
priests, so it cannot be visited by the public. The enclosure is
organized around the large main cloister, the Patio de los Evangelistas,
a masterpiece designed by Juan Bautista de Toledo and which constitutes
one of the best architectural pages of the Monastery. Its two floors are
connected by the spectacular main staircase, with the vaults decorated
by frescoes by Luca Giordano. The ambitious pictorial program of its
arcades was started by Luca Cambiaso and continued by Pellegrino
Tibaldi. In the center of the cloister stands a beautiful small temple
made of granite, marble and jaspers of different colors on a plan by
Juan de Herrera, influenced by the tempietto of San Pietro in Montorio
by Bramante. The sculptures of the four evangelists were chiselled by
Juan Bautista Monegro from a single block of marble and hold an open
book with a fragment of the Gospel from him in the language in which
they were written.
Along with the Chapter Houses, the Low Priory
Cell also stands out, with a fresco on the ceiling about The Judgment of
Solomon by Francesco da Urbino, reminding the prior of the need for a
fair government in front of the Monastery. The sacristy, still in use,
with the Adoration of the Sacred Form by Claudio Coello. In the Iglesia
Vieja o de Prestado, the Martyrdom of San Lorenzo by Titian is
preserved, one of the masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance, which
Felipe II commissioned for the main altarpiece of the Basilica but which
he discarded due to its dark colouring, hardly visible from a certain
distance.
It follows the typical Spanish tradition of the imperial staircase
with a main section divided in two on the sides starting from the first
plateau, maintaining the axis of symmetry of the convent and making the
three floors of the Patio de los Evangelistas compatible with the three
floors of the convent through discrete doors. that allow passage to the
more secluded and domestic area. It is usually attributed to Bergamasco,
although his project was modified and developed by Juan de Herrera. Its
height is 23 meters, 8 meters wide and it is made up of 52 granite steps
in one piece, 4.40 meters long; It has its own roof that covers the
large vault that illuminates its magnificent frescoes from above.
Its decoration of fresco paintings is remarkable; the stairwell has
14 arches at the height of the upper story. Five of them are closed and
show painted panels that continue the subjects of the Life of Jesus
Christ from the lower cloister; two are by the hand of Luca Cambiaso
(Saint Peter and Saint John next to the tomb of the Lord and Appearance
of Jesus to the Apostles in the Cenacle) and three by Pellegrino Tibaldi
(Appearance of the Lord to the Magdalene; Appearance to the Holy Women
and Appearance to the disciples of Emmaus). But the most considerable
work corresponds to Luca Giordano, who by order of Carlos II dated
August 31, 1692, painted the great frieze and the grandiose vault with
his bombastic and spirited style, creating a work of extraordinary
beauty and unsurpassed technique in the field. incredible time of seven
months. In the frieze, the scenes of the Battle of San Quintín and the
Foundation of El Escorial stand out, in which Felipe II appears
discussing the plans of the Monastery with Juan Bautista de Toledo and
Juan de Herrera, together with the Major Worker, the Jerónimo Fray
Antonio de Villacastin. The vault is a masterpiece where scenes of the
Holy Trinity are represented, the Virgin with angels carrying the
emblems of the Passion, numerous Spanish saints or the cardinal Virtues.
On the western side there is a balustrade to which Carlos II leans out,
who explains to his wife Mariana de Neoburgo and his mother Mariana de
Austria the meaning of the painting that he had ordered to be made.
It occupies a large vaulted room, measuring 30x9 meters and almost 11
meters high. It is located in the eastern part of the lower cloister of
the Patio de los Evangelistas, and it receives light from five windows
at ground level. In the center is a beautiful baroque mirror with a
silver frame and rock crystal decorations, a gift from Queen Doña
Mariana of Austria (mother of Carlos II), and to its sides, there are
six other smaller ones conveniently spaced, with sheet metal frames.
finely worked silver. The vault is painted with grotesques, featuring
large coffers with various ornaments between highlighted bands, the work
of Niccolò Granello and Fabrizio Castello; the pavement is white and
gray marble.
It exhibits an excellent pictorial collection,
including works by Luca Giordano (Drunken Noah and his children; The
Oration in the Garden; The false prophet Balaam; Saint Job; The heroine
Jael and Sisera), Titian (Crucified Christ) , José de Ribera (Saint
Peter in prison), Michel Coxcie (The Virgin, the Child Jesus and Santa
Ana who offers him a fruit) or Herrera Barnuevo (Saint John the
Baptist). Although among all of them, The Adoration of the Holy Form
shines with its own light, a masterpiece by Claudio Coello from Madrid,
representing in it the religious function that was held on October 19,
1680 for the solemn transfer of the Holy Form from another part of the
Monastery to its new Sacristy Chapel, admirably composed both in
perspective and in the mastery of the portrayed characters: Carlos II
kneeling; Francisco de los Santos, prior of the Monastery; Father Fray
Marcos de Herrera; the Dukes of Medinaceli and Pastrana; Count Baños;
the Marqués de la Puebla and the eldest son of the Duke of Alba; the
Community of religious Jerónimos singing and, even, the painter himself
included a self-portrait of himself in the person located furthest to
the left of the work.
The altar is completely covered with
Coello's painting, which serves as a veil or transparent to the Blessed
Sacrament and is only drawn once a year (last Sunday in September). It
is then that the painting moves downwards and remains under the
pavement, revealing the magnificent crucifix with the figure of Christ,
beautifully modeled and cast in fire-gilded bronze, the work of Pietro
Tacca, as well as a large temple, also gilded with fire, of
Gothic-Germanic style, 1.60 meters high, drawn by Vicente López, begun
in 1829 by Ignacio Millán and finished in 1834. It contains various
relics and is adorned with forty statuettes and ten busts. The extremely
rich custody of Isabel II, a gift from this queen in 1852, is a work
made in Madrid by Carlos Pizzala, with admirable goldsmith work and
curdled with precious stones, it is -unfortunately- one of the jewels
that disappeared in 1936. The dressing room of the Sacristy , behind the
altarpiece covered in marble and bronze decorations, is the work of
Francisco Rizi, José del Olmo and Francisco Filippi.
Currently destined for the Museum of Paintings, they were the rooms
where the monks held their chapters, a kind of mutual confession to
maintain the purity of the Congregation. Since the time of Velázquez,
who intervened in its decoration, they have housed important paintings.
Despite the transfer of many to the Prado Museum, several as important
are currently exhibited such as The Last Supper and a Saint Jerónimo by
Titian and The Tunic of José by Diego Velázquez. In February 2009, Van
Dyck's Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian was hung on its walls, recovered
(after its acquisition by National Heritage) two centuries after it was
stolen during the Napoleonic invasion.
Its vaults are beautifully
frescoed in the Renaissance style of grotesques and with biblical
figures and saints, made by the sons of Bergamasco (Niccolò Granello and
Fabrizio Castello) in the Rooms themselves and by Francisco de Urbino in
the lower priory cell, with a beautiful decorative effect, in the center
of which stands out the Judgment of Solomon.
In the center of the
vestibule there is an Angel somewhat larger than life, on a pedestal and
holding a lectern that served as a lectern; It is made of gilded bronze
and was made in Antwerp by the Flemish Juan Simón in 1571. On the lower
wall of the right Chapter House there is a curious portable Altar of the
Emperor, which the Emperor Charles V is supposed to have carried in his
campaigns, made in bronze and silver base with enamels.
The
splendid art gallery of the Chapter Houses is made up of works of art of
extraordinary value. It was reorganized in the middle of the 20th
century to solve the lack of space and lighting in the rooms. It
includes works from the German, Flemish, Venetian, Italian and Spanish
schools, from the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries, by some of Philip II's
favorite painters such as El Bosco, Pieter Coecke or Michel Coxcie,
together with works by artists such as Rogier van der Weyden (Great
Calvary), Patinir (Saint Christopher), Navarrete "the Mute", Tintoretto
(Adoration of the Shepherds), Federico Barocci, Paolo Veronese, El Greco
(Saint Peter and Allegory of the Holy League), Luca Giordano ( Apollo
and Marsyas), Francesco Guercino, José de Ribera (Asunción de la
Magdalena), Zurbarán, Alonso Cano, Mario de Fiori, Vicente Carducho,
Andrea Vaccaro, Pablo Matteis, Daniel Seghers or Francisco Rizi, as well
as a copy of the Portrait of Innocent X by Velázquez due to Pietro
Martire Neri and two works in the Veronese style (Adoration of the
Shepherds and Adoration of the Kings).
It is a gallery measuring 60 x 6 meters, 8 meters high, located in
the area of the royal apartments. On its walls some battles won by the
Spanish armies are painted in fresco. On the southern wall, only
interrupted by two gates, the battle of La Higueruela was continuously
painted, where the Castilian army defeated the Moors from Granada in
Sierra Elvira (1431). On the contrary, the north wall appears divided by
nine windows, creating nine spaces in which as many scenes from the war
against France (1557-1558) were represented, with the emphasis placed on
the battle of San Quentin, linked to the founding of the own monastery.
Finally, at the ends two scenes of one of the most recent victories of
the Spanish troops were represented: the battle of Terceira Island
fought between the Spanish army led by Álvaro de Bazán and the French
army (1582-1583). Niccolò Granello and his half-brother Fabrizio
Castello, Lazzaro Tavarone and Orazio Cambiaso, who soon left, were in
charge of the painting. The first thing to be painted were the
grotesques on the vault, for which the artists were paid in January 1585
and were considered finished six months later.
In January 1587,
the contract for the painting of the battle of La Higueruela was signed,
which was not finished until September 1589. Father Sigüenza explains
that they chose to represent this battle of the war in Granada because
it was found in the Alcazar of Segovia In an old chest, a 130-foot
canvas on which the same battle was painted in grisaille and which,
having pleased the king, ordered it copied.
A few months after
finishing the painting of the battle of Higueruela, it was decided to
complete the decoration of the room, signing a new contract with
Castello, Granello and Tavarone in February 1590. The battles chosen
were, on the one hand, those of war against the French in 1557 and 1558,
the only battles to which Felipe II had attended in person, and the
capture of the Third Island in the Azores, which completed the
incorporation of Portugal into the Spanish crown. To ensure historical
accuracy, the painters were given models of the formation of the squads
and their uniforms provided by Rodrigo de Holanda, son-in-law of Antonio
de las Viñas.
In 1890 the iron railing that protects the frescoes
was placed, drawing by the architect José de Lema.
It was located in the basement of the building, in the so-called Bóvedas Plant by Juan de Herrera, and was created in 1963 as part of the exhibitions of the IV centenary of the laying of the first stone. In its eleven rooms, the tools, cranes and other material used in the construction of the monument were displayed, as well as reproductions of plans, models and documents related to the works, with very interesting data that explained the idea and gestation of the building. These rooms were permanently closed in 2015.
The first two were built by Juan de Herrera in the 16th century and the third, the work of Juan de Villanueva, dates from the 18th century. Although the two houses are physically separated from each other, they constitute a building conceived in a unitary way, and they were conceived at the same time as the Monastery, within the same Universal Trace, and thus they appear on all plans. Originally they arose due to the lack of space in the Monastery to house all the palatial dependencies, and due to the need to separate the animals from the sacred enclosure of the Temple and the Convent, mainly from horses and carriages. Projected by Herrera, the works were directed by him and later by Francisco de Mora, between 1587 and 1596.
Located in the Monastery's West Market, it is the first great work of Juan de Villanueva in his professional career, in the year 1769. It was designed to house the service and families of the infants D. Gabriel, D. Antonio Pascual and D. Francisco Javier. It has three levels, access semi-basement, low and main, as well as attics. The slope of the land caused the location of the ground floor on the upper level. The main façade preserves the order of the Casa de Oficios and the Monastery, with a continuous rhythm and holes in the manner of Herrera, with a simple cornice that separates the body from the sloping roof. On the two floors of the rear front, Villanueva allowed himself to express the lack of references to the Monastery.
The Company arose to house various services of the Monastery, some of which were to be located in the northwest quadrant of the great building; but the decision in 1565 to create the College and locate it in that area forced them to find another place. It was drawn up in the 16th century by Francisco de Mora. It was made up of a set of dependencies that housed the pens and farms of the Jerónimos, and also the workshops, the hostelry and other services that should not properly be inside the monastery, but "accompany it". The María Cristina Royal University College was founded in the Company by the regent queen María Cristina in 1892, governed at the time by the Order of San Agustín. It is currently a private higher education teaching center, attached to the Complutense University of Madrid.
To the southwest of the garden is the Gallery of Convalescents or Corridors of the Sun, a large, airy and light-filled space designed for the repose of the sick. It is supported by an architectural articulation little achieved in the Torre de la Botica, perhaps due to the need to guarantee the closure to the monks. Its sober façade towards the West market, designed by Toledo, contrasts with the more open one towards the gardens, where the architrave solution with arches on Ionic colonnades is unique in the monastery. La Botica is the work of Francisco de Mora, although its layout may be due to Juan de Herrera, since it already appears in the Seventh design. This building, organized around a patio, occupies the free space between the Corredores del Sol and the retaining wall of the Lonja. Mora also built the flyover over seven arches that allowed the Company to pass through the monastic precincts.
The great Lonja, a wide and diaphanous square, surrounds the Monastery in the north and west, this part being the widest. Enter the Basilica through the Patio de los Reyes. As can be seen, for example, in the painting by Michel-Ange Houasse, from 1723, the market left the space to the west open, only flanked by the Casa de la Compañía. The current image dates from the 18th century, when the architect Juan de Villanueva built the third Casa de Oficios to the north and the Casas de Infantes to the west.
Ordered to be built by Felipe II to the south of the Monastery, who was a lover of nature, they constitute an ideal place for rest and meditation. Manuel Azaña, who studied at the college of the Augustinian friars of this monastery, quotes him in his Memoirs and in his work El jardín de los frailes. It is a place of entertainment and study for students. The king conceived of his gardens as a productive space to grow vegetables and medicinal plants, but he also saw them as a source of pleasure, with fountains and flowers. The monarch collected garden plans from France, Italy, England and the Netherlands, hiring the best gardeners, both foreign and Spanish. This now austere garden was originally full of flowers, forming a kind of tapestry, for which reason it was compared to the carpets that were brought from Turkey or Damascus. It was also a true botanical garden, with up to 68 different varieties of flowers, many medicinal, and some 400 plants that were brought from the New World. To the east, and closed off from the previous one by a stone enclosure, the so-called King's Garden was built, which is located next to the royal apartments. It is composed of four spaces: one for the king, another for the queen, another for the prince, and the last one for the court.
On November 2, 1984, coinciding with the celebration of the fourth
centenary of the laying of the last stone, the UNESCO World Heritage
Committee, meeting in the Argentine city of Buenos Aires, inscribed the
Monastery on the World Heritage List of Humanity, such as "El Escorial:
Monastery and Site". This figure includes the Monastery and other royal
enclaves, the Casita del Príncipe and the Casita del Infante, both
designed by Juan de Villanueva in the time of Carlos III.
In
2013, and within the collection of World Heritage Buildings, the Bank of
Spain issued a €2 commemorative coin in which the Monastery appeared.