San Lorenzo de El Escorial
- Maximus Nostramabus
- Mar 25, 2021
- 6 min read
Updated: 23 hours ago
Historic residence of the King of Spain - Monastery and Site of the Escurial, Madrid 318
What and Why
Philip II (Spanish: Felipe II, né Felipe de Habsburg) of Spain's (España) was a man of extraordinary ambition and extraordinary melancholy, and El Escorial is the physical embodiment of both. He commissioned this vast complex in the 1560s to serve simultaneously as a monastery, basilica, royal palace, pantheon, library, museum, university, school and hospital, a list so comprehensive it reads less like a building brief and more like the ambitions of a man trying to control every aspect of life from a single location. He largely succeeded and El Escorial is one of the largest buildings on earth by footprint, it demonstrates the imperial power of Habsburg Spain (Casa de Austria) plus its manifestation of the state's role as a centre of the Christian world. The complex has profound influence on future Spanish architecture and remains one of the greatest masterpieces of Renaissance architecture in Europe.
Toponymy
Escorial derives from the slag (escoria) deposits left by an old iron foundry on the site, which gives the grand monastery a rather unglamorous origin story. Come to think of it, Philip II with all ambition actually chose to build a monumental building named after industrial waste.
The San Lorenzo element carries more romance: it commemorates the Battle of Saint Quentin (Batalla de San Quintín), won by Spain on 10th August 1557, Saint Lawrence Day. Saint Lawrence (Latin: Laurentius) was one of the martyred deacons of Rome (Italian: Roma) who famously martyred by being roasted alive on a gridiron. This matters architecturally: the entire floor plan of El Escorial is designed in the shape of a gridiron, a direct tribute to the saint. So the city and the buildling is not only named after a martyrdom, it is shaped by one.
See
El Escoril
The complex dominates its mountain setting above Madrid with a severity that is either magnificent or oppressive, depending on your mood when you arrive. On the day we visited, under a bright hot sky, I found it both simultaneously.
Walking into El Escorial requires a moment of adjustment. The scale is simply not something my eyes process immediately. The squarish floor plan, modelled on the biblical Solomon's Temple (Hebrew: בֵּית־הַמִּקְדָּשׁ, Beit Ha-Miqdash) and shaped, as mentioned, like a gridiron in honour of Saint Lawrence, covers roughly 33,000 m², and the internal logic is so rigidly geometric that it can feel disorienting rather than welcoming, especially when we were just following the guided walkways. The museum visit follows a linear route beginning on the western façade, which at least prevents you from getting lost, though it cannot prevent the feeling of mild overwhelm.
The Gardens of the Friars (El Jardín de los Frailes) offer the first breath of fresh air literally, a formal garden commissioned by Philip II, who was apparently a devoted naturalist when not managing his empire. After the stone corridors, the green is genuinely welcome.
Another view of the courtyard.
A number of artefacts for exhibition.
Another view of the garden.
The first major centrepiece within the complex, the Courtyard of the Kings (Patio de los Reyes) then opens up around the Gothic (German: Gotik) basilica, which anchors the entire complex. The altarpiece inside the Basilica is one of the most lavishly decorated I have ever seen, which given how many altarpieces I have now seen and blogged across Europe, is saying something.
The highlight of the basilica is the extremely lavishly decorated altarpiece.
From there one can exit the complex through the main portal, although this portal now only leads to the basilica.
From the main portal, one can reach the other impressive feature of the complex: the library. The library is itself a personal book collection of Philip II, some impressive 40,000 manuscripts and volumes! Incredibly the first thing in the library that strikes you is not the books at all, but the ceiling. The ceiling is covered in extraordinary 16th-century frescoes representing the seven liberal arts: grammar, rhetoric, dialectics, arithmetic, music, geometry and astronomy. As a part mathematician, I found myself standing in the middle of the room with my neck craned back for rather longer than the rest of my troop considered reasonable.
The library is also very different from the other libraries: apparently Philip II arrranged the book spines are all facing inward supposedly to protect the gilded edges. The shelves present a wall of closed pages rather than readable titles. It is either a visionary preservation technique or the most impractical and bizarrelibrary design in history.
The next star-feature must be the Royal Pantheon, which is the final resting room containing the remains of the kings and queens regnant of the Habsburg and Bourbon dynasties. Descending into it, you enter a circular, candle-lit chamber in black marble and gilt bronze where the remains of virtually every Spanish monarch are housed in identical marble sarcophagi, stacked in tiers along the walls. Ironically the family sarcophagi of Habsburg and Bourbon lie side by side: enemies in life, neighbours in death. The weight of five centuries of dynastic history in a single room is not something you shake off quickly, even when I will not claim I know much about Spanish history. My troop friends were unusually quiet in there, which I took as the highest possible tribute to the space.
As in other palaces, much of the staterooms are now converted to a museum and a gallery. Amongst the many rooms the most impressive is definitely the War Room (Sala de Batallas).
The room is the final flourish and, in many ways, the most honest room in the building and the tour. A long gallery lined floor to ceiling with enormous frescoes depicting Spain's great military victories. Philip II was not a man troubled by modesty, reminding me of someone in the present era. Walking its length, I feel the full weight of what El Escorial was meant to communicate: that Spain, under the Habsburgs, was the pre-eminent military and religious power on Earth.
Eat and Drink
Suckling pig (Cochinillo asado)
Spanish suckling pig (cochinillo asado) is moist and juicy, unlike our Hong Kong (Chinese: 香港, Hoenggong) counterpart and is very similar to the Filipino counterpart, blogged in Manila (Maynilà). The Spanish version use young piglets to emphasise the tenderness of the meat. The key difference, is the Chinese style focuses on the crispiness of the skin and literally you discard the whole body and carcass. The Spanish pig must be eaten in its entirety, with emphasis on the succulence of the meat and its flavouring. The Hong Kong roast is mainly spiced up by soy sauce, mostly placing emphasis on the skin while the Spanish one is flavoured by herbs and woodfire, ensuring the whole pig is evenly flavoured.
Since we stayed in Madrid, we did not realise we are staying near a world record! Sobrino de Botín is officially the oldest existing restaurant in the world, serving its patrons since 1725, which can be attested by the Guinness certificate on the main entrance! We went in for their signature suckling pig naturally and what followed was one of the finest meals of the trip. I literally ate like a pig!
In spite of the celebrated status of this restaurant, the eatery is really cozy, modest and friendly and there is absolutely nothing condescending about this place. Francisco Goya (né Francisco de Goya y Lucientes) washed dishes here as a young man! A restaurant of this stature back home or any other place, probably demands more respect, and might only accept certain clienteles with their nose up. There was nothing like this here and truly it was another positive experience that I must add. It turned out that my trip to El Escorial had suddenly become a subplot.
Travel Suggestions and Logistics
The site is an hour bus ride from Madrid main terminus. The entrance fee to the residence is EUR 7.5€. San Lorenzo de El Escoril serves as an excellent day-trip from Madrid.
UNESCO Inscription
Built at the end of the 16th century on a plan in the form of a grill, the instrument of the martyrdom of St Lawrence, the Escurial Monastery stands in an exceptionally beautiful site in Castile. Its austere architecture, a break with previous styles, had a considerable influence on Spanish architecture for more than half a century. It was the retreat of a mystic king and became, in the last years of Philip II's reign, the centre of the greatest political power of the time.
References
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