El Escorial
Title
El Escorial
Description
The Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial (usually referred to simply as “El Escorial”) might be seen as the physical embodiment of the Spanish Golden Age. At once austere and ornate, martial and scholarly, tradition-stamped and forward-looking, it reflects the conflicted but unquestionably vibrant culture and outlook of the nation which produced it. Located at the foot of a mountain 28 miles from the Spanish capital of Madrid, El Escorial was built starting in 1563 by the architect Juan Bautista de Toledo. The building was commissioned by Philip II of Spain in order to serve two purposes: its secular function was to serve as a palace for Philip and as a tomb for his parents, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and Isabella of Portugal, while its religious function was as a monastery, school, and the location of a basilica (Patrimonio Nacional, Royal Site of San Lorenzo de El Escorial).
Seen from the exterior, El Escorial is a strikingly austere building of grey-brown stone and sharp angles. The squat, square towers at its corners and regiments of rectangular windows standing at attention on its walls create the impression less of a palace than of a fortress. Nonetheless, El Escorial is hardly crude. The facade is reminiscent of those constructed for contemporary Renaissance churches, built in the style of a Greco-Roman temple, which is to say proportioned according to the Golden Ratio and boasting two rows of pilasters and a pediment on top. It isn’t as colorful or ornate as some Italian churches, but it signals that this is a building created by people in touch with tradition as well as with high culture. The incredibly ornate altar of the Real Basílica de San Lorenzo, however, makes up for the subtlety of El Escorial’s facade. The church, which was the central building in the palace/monastery complex, has a richly-painted altar screen which stands more than 80 feet tall and is flanked by bronze statues, and the ceiling is also painted with scenes of heaven (Monasterio del Escorial, Basílica). Still, the basilica’s style, with its simple Romanesque arches and towering grey walls, is less extravagant than the Baroque churches which were beginning to be built in the later 1500s, and again reinforces El Escorial’s almost martial asceticism.
The design of the El Escorial complex twines together the religious, military, and royal in the same way that Spain had done under Philip II and his predecessors and would continue to do throughout its Golden Age. This was the land of the most famous and brutal Inquisition, the country rapidly on its way to ruling a good fraction of the Earth, and the most powerful bastion of Catholicism outside Rome. What is more emblematic of that than a fortress-like mountain palace filled with monks training to defend the faith?
Seen from the exterior, El Escorial is a strikingly austere building of grey-brown stone and sharp angles. The squat, square towers at its corners and regiments of rectangular windows standing at attention on its walls create the impression less of a palace than of a fortress. Nonetheless, El Escorial is hardly crude. The facade is reminiscent of those constructed for contemporary Renaissance churches, built in the style of a Greco-Roman temple, which is to say proportioned according to the Golden Ratio and boasting two rows of pilasters and a pediment on top. It isn’t as colorful or ornate as some Italian churches, but it signals that this is a building created by people in touch with tradition as well as with high culture. The incredibly ornate altar of the Real Basílica de San Lorenzo, however, makes up for the subtlety of El Escorial’s facade. The church, which was the central building in the palace/monastery complex, has a richly-painted altar screen which stands more than 80 feet tall and is flanked by bronze statues, and the ceiling is also painted with scenes of heaven (Monasterio del Escorial, Basílica). Still, the basilica’s style, with its simple Romanesque arches and towering grey walls, is less extravagant than the Baroque churches which were beginning to be built in the later 1500s, and again reinforces El Escorial’s almost martial asceticism.
The design of the El Escorial complex twines together the religious, military, and royal in the same way that Spain had done under Philip II and his predecessors and would continue to do throughout its Golden Age. This was the land of the most famous and brutal Inquisition, the country rapidly on its way to ruling a good fraction of the Earth, and the most powerful bastion of Catholicism outside Rome. What is more emblematic of that than a fortress-like mountain palace filled with monks training to defend the faith?
Creator
Painting: Michel Ange Houasse
Architect: Juan Bautista de Toledo
Architect: Juan Bautista de Toledo
Source
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vista_del_Monasterio_de_El_Escorial,_por_Michel-Ange_Houasse.jpg
Patrimonio Nacional, Royal Site of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, 2018. http://www.patrimonionacional.es/real-sitio/real-sitio-de-san-lorenzo-de-el-escorial?language=en
Monasterio del Escorial, Basilica, 2018. http://monasteriodelescorial.com/basilica/
Patrimonio Nacional, Royal Site of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, 2018. http://www.patrimonionacional.es/real-sitio/real-sitio-de-san-lorenzo-de-el-escorial?language=en
Monasterio del Escorial, Basilica, 2018. http://monasteriodelescorial.com/basilica/
Date
Completed 1584
Contributor
Brendan Glenn
Rights
Public Domain; free re-use
Original Format
Painting
Physical Dimensions
19x32 in
Citation
Painting: Michel Ange Houasse
Architect: Juan Bautista de Toledo, “El Escorial,” HIST 139 - Early Modern Europe, accessed May 6, 2025, https://earlymoderneurope.hist.sites.carleton.edu/items/show/73.