Escorial

Escorial. A small village about 50 km (30 miles) north-west of Madrid that gives its name to the monastery-palace built there by Philip II (see Habsburg), one of the great monuments of Spanish architecture and one of the great treasure houses of Spanish art. Philip built the Escorial to honour the wishes of his father, the Emperor Charles V (d 1558), who in his will had specified the creation of a religious foundation in which he was to be buried alongside his wife, Isabella of Portugal (d 1539). In addition to this function as a royal mausoleum (almost every Spanish monarch from Charles V onwards has been buried there), the Escorial was built as a palace, a monastery, and a seminary, all centred on an imposing domed church. The huge complex was begun in 1563, with Juan Bautista de Toledo as architect; he died in 1567 and was succeeded by Juan de Herrera, under whom it was officially completed in 1584 (although construction went on for some time after this).

Externally the Escorial is built of grey granite and is overpoweringly austere, with forms of almost geometric clarity and virtually no ornament. Internally, however, it contains an extraordinary wealth of decoration (including vast areas of wall and ceiling frescos), which engaged teams of artists long after Philip's death. The plan is a large rectangle, roughly 160 m × 200 m (175 × 220 yds), and the layout has been compared to a gridiron; this is the attribute of St Lawrence (a 3rd-century martyr said to be of Spanish origin), to whom the monastery was dedicated in acknowledgement of Philip II's victory over the French at Saint Quentin on Lawrence's feast day in 1557. Many of the works of art in the Escorial feature the saint, including Titian's great altarpiece of the Martyrdom of St Lawrence, commissioned by Philip in 1564.

Philip failed to persuade Titian (his favourite painter) to come to Spain, but he imported many other Italian artists to work at the Escorial, including the painters Luca Cambiaso, Pellegrino Tibaldi, and Federico Zuccaro, and the sculptor Pompeo Leoni. Such artists formed the main channel through which the Mannerist style entered Spain. Among the Spanish artists employed by Philip on the decoration of the Escorial were Navarrete and Sánchez Coello. El Greco too painted a major altarpiece for him, the Martyrdom of St Maurice and the Theban Legion (1580–2), but Philip disliked it (evidently because it did not sufficiently ‘inspire devotion’) and had it replaced (although it remains in the Escorial).

Artists of later generations who made important contributions to the decoration of the building include Claudio Coello and Luca Giordano, both of whom worked there in the late 17th century. In the 18th century Charles III used the Escorial as a hunting seat and furnished the hitherto unoccupied state rooms of the palace; many of the tapestries with which the walls were hung were designed by Goya. Other outstanding works of art in the Escorial include a marble Crucifix carved by Benvenuto Cellini and paintings by Dürer, Bosch, Ribera, and Velázquez.

Structurally the Escorial has changed little in essentials since Philip II's time, although it was repaired after fires in 1671, 1731, 1763, and 1825. A programme of restoration began in 1953, and in 1963 a new museum was established, containing material relating to the construction of the building as well as works of art. The Escorial still functions as a monastery, but it is now administered by the Patrimonio Nacional—the organization in charge of national art treasures.