ESCORIAL (EL ESCORIAL). - Village about 40 km. from Madrid, famous for a grandiose complex of buildings, founded by Philip II, in memory of the victory of St. Quentin. Begun in 1563, on the design and under the direction of Juan Bautista de Toledo and then of Giambattista Castello and of Juan de Herrera, the building has a rectangular plan.
It comprises the convent of St. Lawrence, two large courtyards, the church on a Greek cross plan, the Royal Palace, the Pantheon of the Kings, that of the Infantes, the main chapel and the old church. The long façades, with four orders of simple windows, are articulated by majestic portals and by square towers at the corners and appear surmounted by the dome and the two bell towers of the church. Distinguished artists collaborated on the interior decoration, among them B. Cellini, P. and L. Leoni, P. Tacca, L. Cambiaso, P. Tibaldi and L. Giordano. In the chapter rooms there is an important collection of paintings. The palace is adorned with tapestries, among which numerous ones after cartoons by Goya. The distinguished monument, although inspired by 16th-century Italian architecture, has a typically Iberian character for its austere yet majestic quality and is the complete expression of the spirit of its founder, who had himself carried there in his death agony, to die there, in 1598.
The library too was founded by Philip II with an initial endowment of 4,000 volumes from his personal library, among them some manuscripts. In 1576 the library of Diego de Mendoza, formerly ambassador to Venice and to Rome, was added to it. Other substantial collections came from Granada, Plasencia, Majorca, Barcelona; others from donations and testamentary bequests. Philip IV increased the revenues left by Philip II and the privilege was issued that a copy of every printed work be sent to the library: a privilege that, through the viceroys, was extended to Naples, to Milan, to Flanders.
A fire in 1671 destroyed more than 4,000 manuscripts. In 1876 about 5,000 volumes of the library of the Seminary of Cuba, founded by St. Anthony Claret, passed to the Escorial.
Among the manuscripts are remembered: the Itinerary of Antoninus of the 7th century, already in the inventory of the cathedral of Oviedo in 882; the Codex Aureus, written in golden letters, containing the four Gospels; an Explanación del Apocalipsis by St. Beatus of Liébana of the 9th century; the Vigilian or Albeldense codex which contains the ancient general and particular councils of Spain, Gaul and Africa, the Decretals, the Chronicle of Albelda up to the year 976; the Camino de perfección, in the autograph of St. Teresa of Jesus; the Breviary of the Emperor Charles V, the illuminated Breviary of Philip II; a Cosmography of Ptolemy of the 15th century and a Bible in Hebrew, written in Spain in the middle of the 15th century, etc. Among the incunabula there is one from Valencia, of 1475, and one from Saragossa of 1481, a unique copy. The Hieronymites were succeeded in 1885 by the Augustinians, who established there the Real Colegio de Alfonso XIII. - See plate XLI.
