El Escorial: Philip II's monastery and the town at its foot: a self-guided walk
By Alleytale
Philip II's monastery and its court town
The monastery had no room for every service of a royal household, so houses for offices, coaches and servants went up beside it, and when Charles III allowed houses beside its Lonja in 1767 a town began to grow at the monastery's foot.
The stops
Philip II ordered this monastery and royal residence built to mark the Spanish victory at St Quentin in 1557, and its cornerstone was laid on 23 April 1563. Under the architect Juan de Herrera it was finished in 1584, in slightly less than 21 years, and it is the largest Renaissance building in the world. Its gridiron plan is traditionally explained as a tribute to Saint Lawrence, who was martyred on a grill, though the origin of the layout is disputed.
Photo: Zvonimir Stamenov — CC BY-SA 4.0 The monastery had no room for all the services of a royal household, so Juan de Herrera designed these long houses of offices beside it, partly to keep horses and carriages away from the sacred precinct. Herrera and then Francisco de Mora directed the work between 1587 and 1596. Charles III then commissioned a third house from Juan de Villanueva, built between 1785 and 1797 to lodge the First Secretary of State, the Count of Floridablanca, and it closed the perimeter of the Lonja, the great open square that wraps the monastery on its north and west sides.
Photo: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Balbo — CC BY-SA 3.0 Charles III ordered these coach houses built in 1771, to the design of the architect Juan Esteban, to meet the transport needs of the royal household during its autumn stays at El Escorial, and they housed carriages, horses and the staff who moved the king and his court. They passed into private hands in 1870. A private museum of carriages and travel objects has been kept here, and in 2021 a citizen campaign sought to prevent its closure.
Photo: Miguel Angel Masegosa Martínez — CC BY 2.0 Between 1770 and 1778 the French architect Jaime Marquet built three court theatres for Charles III, at Aranjuez, El Pardo and San Lorenzo de El Escorial; this one was begun in 1771 and finished the next year, and it keeps the layout of an 18th-century theatre, one of the oldest covered theatres still standing in Spain. It is popularly known as La Bombonera, the bonbon box. A restoration in the 1970s saved it from demolition.
Photo: Dorieo — CC BY-SA 4.0 Inside the Second Casa de Oficios, the old Chapel of the Laborantes is now the sanctuary of Nuestra Señora de Gracia, the patron saint of San Lorenzo de El Escorial. On the second Sunday of September the Romería de la Virgen de Gracia sets out from the Lonja at ten in the morning for a pilgrims' ground in the Herrería woods, and on the return a procession leads from the Arcos de la Universidad to this door, where the pilgrims sing and dance to the Virgin and the romería ends for the year.
Photo: Dirección General de Turismo. Consejería de Economía e Innovación Tecnológica. Comunidad de Madrid. — CC BY 3.0 es This house on the western side of the Lonja was Juan de Villanueva's first big commission, in 1769, planned to lodge the servants and families of the infantes Gabriel, Antonio Pascual and Francisco Javier; its facade keeps the rhythm of the monastery, with windows in the manner of Herrera. It stands in a town that began two years earlier, when Charles III allowed houses to be built beside the Lonja. After a restoration it was inaugurated on 11 July 1991 as Euroforum Infantes, a centre for training managers.
Photo: Zarateman — CC0 Philip II founded this library, also called the Escurialense or the Laurentina, and in 1576 an inventory counted 4,546 volumes, and at that time the collection was so large that it took the help of Benito Arias Montano, who needed about ten months to catalogue the books, arranging them by language. Its great hall is 54 metres long, with bookcases designed by Herrera and a barrel vault painted by Pellegrino Tibaldi with the seven liberal arts. A fire on 7 June 1671 destroyed more than 4,000 codices.
Photo: Jose Luis Filpo Cabana — CC BY 3.0 La Compaña was laid out in the 16th century by Francisco de Mora to hold the Hieronymite monks' farmyards, workshops, guesthouse and other services that did not belong inside the monastery but were meant to accompany it. Queen Regent María Cristina founded a university college here in 1892, and it has been run by the Augustinians from the start. Today it houses the Real Centro Universitario María Cristina, a private university college.
Photo: Arturo Francisco Barbero — CC BY-SA 4.0 Philip II, a lover of nature, had these gardens laid out south of the monastery for rest and meditation, and he gathered garden plans from France, Italy, England and the Low Countries. He saw them as productive ground for vegetables and medicinal plants as well as a place of pleasure, with fountains and flowers, and they were once a true botanical garden, with up to 68 varieties of flowers and some 400 plants brought from the New World. Manuel Azaña, who studied at the Augustinians' school in the monastery, mentions them in his memoirs and in his work El jardín de los frailes.
Photo: Bernard Gagnon — CC BY-SA 3.0
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