Royal Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial — palace
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Royal Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial

Real Monasterio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial

  • 2 min read
  • 40.589° N 4.148° W
  • UNESCO World Heritage

Interesting facts

  • It is often called the largest Renaissance building in the world, and its size doubled from the first plan as Philip added new functions.
  • In Spanish, 'la obra de El Escorial' became a proverb for any job that takes forever to finish.
  • Philip asked his architects for simplicity, severity and majesty without ostentation, which explains the building's fortress-like austerity.
  • The Royal Library was the first in Europe to place its bookcases along the walls, and its design inspired Domenico Fontana's Vatican Library.
  • A fire in 1671 destroyed about 5,280 manuscript codices, including Francisco Hernández's multi-volume natural history of the Americas.
  • Philip II gathered some 7,500 relics into about 570 reliquaries shaped as heads, arms, chests and pyramids, many designed by Juan de Herrera.
  • Before entering the Pantheon of the Kings, royal remains lie for decades in a sealed decaying chamber, the pudridero, which only the monks may visit.
  • Philip II kept more than 400 books banned by the Inquisition, reserving them for scholars rather than destroying them.
  • The only known copy of the Kitab al-I'tibar, a 12th-century Syrian autobiography, was discovered in the library in the 19th century.
  • The high altarpiece, nearly 28 metres tall, is built of red granite and jasper and holds gilded bronze figures by Leone Leoni.

Why it is worth it

At the foot of Mount Abantos in the Sierra de Guadarrama, El Escorial rises as a single vast block of grey granite, some 224 by 153 metres, its long, almost unadorned walls broken only by rows of windows and corner towers. It is at once a monastery, a basilica, a royal palace, a royal burial place and a library, built in barely two decades, from 1563 to 1584, for King Philip II of Spain. The king raised it to commemorate the Spanish victory over France at the Battle of St. Quentin in 1557, fought on 10 August, the feast of Saint Lawrence, whose name the monastery bears.

The first architect, Juan Bautista de Toledo, laid out the plan; after his death his pupil Juan de Herrera carried the work through and gave his name to the sober Herrerian style that proved widely influential. The plan is a grid of courtyards and passages. Tradition says it recalls the gridiron on which Saint Lawrence was martyred, though scholars more often trace it to descriptions of the Temple of Solomon. At its centre stands the basilica, entered across the Courtyard of the Kings with its statues of the kings of Judah; Herrera reworked it as a Greek cross, and its dome, inspired by St Peter's in Rome, rises nearly 100 metres. Beside the high altar, Philip's own austere rooms had a window through which the ailing king could follow Mass from his bed.

Under the royal chapel of the basilica lies the Pantheon of the Kings, an octagonal Baroque chamber of marble where most Spanish monarchs since Charles I are buried. The library holds more than 40,000 volumes, among them illuminated manuscripts, under a vaulted ceiling painted by Pellegrino Tibaldi with the seven liberal arts. The Hall of Battles is frescoed with Spanish victories, and the collections include works by Titian, El Greco and Velázquez. Founded for a community of Hieronymite monks, the monastery is now in the care of the Augustinians. It was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1984.

Getting there

The monastery stands in the town of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, about 45 km northwest of Madrid. El Escorial has a railway station with trains from Madrid. The nearest airport is Adolfo Suárez Madrid–Barajas (MAD), about 50 km away.

On these lists

The Most Beautiful Places in Spain 150The Most Beautiful Monasteries in Spain 5The Most Beautiful UNESCO-Listed Palaces in Spain 6The Most Beautiful UNESCO-Listed Castles, Palaces and Fortresses in Spain 9The Most Beautiful Palaces in Spain 10The Most Beautiful UNESCO-Listed Sacred Places in Spain 13The Most Beautiful Castles, Palaces and Fortresses in Spain 18The Most Beautiful Sacred Places in Spain 30The Most Beautiful UNESCO-Listed Monasteries 33The Most Beautiful UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Spain 37The Most Beautiful UNESCO-Listed Palaces 38The Most Beautiful Monasteries 79The Most Beautiful Palaces 91The Most Beautiful UNESCO-Listed Castles, Palaces and Fortresses 92The Most Beautiful UNESCO-Listed Sacred Places 179The Most Beautiful Castles, Palaces and Fortresses 302The Most Beautiful UNESCO World Heritage Sites 557The Most Beautiful Sacred Places 623

From the encyclopaedia

The Royal Site of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, also called Monasterio de El Escorial or simply El Escorial, is a historical residence of the king of Spain located in the town of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, 2.06 kilometres (1.28 mi) up the valley from the town of El Escorial and about 45 kilometres (28 mi) northwest of the Spanish capital Madrid. Built between 1563 and 1584 by order of King Philip II, El Escorial is the largest Renaissance building in the world. It is one of the Spanish royal sites and functions as a monastery, basilica, royal palace, pantheon, library, museum, university, school, and hospital.

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