Courtyard of the Kings The main entrance of the El Escorial is the west façade, which has three doors: the middle one leads to the Courtyard of the Kings (
Patio de los Reyes) and the side ones lead to a school and to a monastery. Above the center door is a niche where the image of
Saint Lawrence has been placed. The Courtyard of the Kings owes its name to the statues of the
kings of Judah that adorn the façade of the basilica, located at the east end of the courtyard. Steps of red marble lead to the large, public chapel, past the narthex, which is one of the highlights of the basilica. The basilica has a floor in the shape of a
Greek cross and an enormous dome, inspired by
St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, above the crossing. The naves are covered over by barrel vaults decorated with frescoes by
Luca Giordano. The main altarpiece is high and divided into compartments of different sizes where are found bronze sculptures, and canvases by
Pellegrino Tibaldi,
Federico Zuccari, and
Leone Leoni. In the
sacristy, paintings such as ''Joseph's Coat
by Velázquez, The Last Supper
by Titian, and The Adoration of the Sacred Host by Charles II'' by
Claudio Coello are on exhibit. Under the royal chapel of the Basilica is the Royal Pantheon crypt. As such, it has a long
nave on the east–west axis intersected by a shorter transept, about three-quarters of the way between the west entrance and the high altar. This plan was modified by
Juan de Herrera to that of a
Greek cross, a form with all four arms of equal length. Coincident with this shift in approach, the bell towers at the western end of the church were somewhat reduced in size and the small half-dome intended to stand over the altar was replaced with a full circular dome over the center of the church, where the four arms of the Greek cross meet. Clearly
Juan Bautista de Toledo's experience with the dome of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome influenced the design of El Escorial's basilica. However, the Roman dome is supported by ranks of tapered
Corinthian columns, with their extravagant capitals of acanthus leaves and their elaborately
fluted shafts, while the dome at El Escorial, soaring nearly into the air, is supported by four heavy granite piers connected by simple
Romanesque arches and decorated by simple
Doric pilasters, plain, solid, and largely unprepossessing. It would not be a flight of fancy to interpret St. Peter's as the quintessential expression of
Baroque sensuality and the basilica at El Escorial as a statement of the stark rigidity and grim purposefulness of the
Inquisition, the two sides of the
Counter-Reformation. The most richly decorated part of the church is the area surrounding the high altar. Behind the altar is a three-tiered
reredos, or altar screen, made of red granite and
jasper, nearly tall, adorned with gilded bronze statuary by
Leone Leoni, and three sets of religious paintings commissioned by Philip II. To either side are gilded life-size bronzes of the kneeling family groups of Charles and Philip, also by Leoni, with help from his son
Pompeo. In a shallow niche at the center of the lowest level is the tabernacle, a repository for the physical elements of the communion ceremony, a so-called "House of the Sacrament", designed by Juan de Herrera in jasper and
bronze. It was built between 1579 and 1586 by
Jacopo da Trezzo. To decorate the
reredos, the King's preferences had been
Michelangelo or
Titian, but both of these giants were already more than eighty years old and in frail health. Consequently, Philip consulted his foreign ambassadors for recommendations, and the result was a lengthy parade of the lesser European artists of that time, all swanning through the construction site at El Escorial seeking the King's favor. One chapel exhibits the famous
Crucifix carved in white marble by
Benvenuto Cellini. This statue of Christ is unusual because it was represented fully nude; although for modesty it wears one cloth covering the genitals.
Palace of Philip II Situated next to the main altar of the Basilica, the residence of King Philip II consists of a series of austerely decorated rooms. It features a window from which the king could observe
mass from his bed when incapacitated by the
gout that afflicted him.
Hall of Battles The gallery was originally called the King's Gallery (
Galería del Rey) but came to be known as the Hall of Battles (
Sala de Batallas) for its
fresco paintings depicting the most important Spanish military victories. These include a medieval victory over the
Moors, as well as several of Philip's campaigns against the French.
Royal burial vaults Pantheon of the Kings This chamber consists of twenty-six marble sepulchres containing the remains of the kings and queens regnant (the only queen regnant since Philip II being
Isabella II) of the
Habsburg and
Bourbon dynasties, from
Charles I to the present, except for
Philip V and his son
Ferdinand VI. at El Escorial, one for the Pantheon of the Kings and the other for the Pantheon of the Princes. These can only be visited by monks from the Monastery. In these rooms, the remains of the deceased are placed in a small leaden urn, which in turn will be placed in the marble sepulchres of the appropriate pantheon after the passage of fifty years, the estimated time necessary for the complete decomposition of the bodies. The interment of the remains of Queen Victoria Eugenie and the Count and Countess of Barcelona in the Royal Pantheon will each constitute an exception to tradition. First, Victoria Eugenie, although the wife of a king, was never the mother of a king in the strict sense. Secondly, the Count of Barcelona never reigned as king, although he was head of the Spanish royal family between the renunciation of his father's rights on 14 January 1941 and his renunciation of his own rights in favour of his son Juan Carlos I on 14 May 1977. Thirdly, the Countess of Barcelona was the mother of a king but not the wife of a king. However, some consider the Count of Barcelona to have been
de jure king of Spain from 1941 to 1977, which in turn would make him, his mother, Queen Victoria Eugenie, and his wife, the Countess of Barcelona, eligible for interment in the Pantheon of Kings. There has already been one exception to tradition:
Elisabeth of Bourbon is for the moment the only queen in the pantheon who has not been mother to a king. That is because her only son, the presumed heir to the throne, died after her but before he could become king. But she was the great-grandmother of Philip V (by her daughter
Maria Theresa of Spain) and she is an ancestor of the king of Spain. The walls of polished
Toledo marble are ornamented in gold-plated bronze. All of the wood used in El Escorial comes from the ancient forests of
Sagua La Grande, on the so-called Golden Coast of Cuba.
Pantheon of the Princes The pantheon's name in Spanish is
Panteón de Infantes. Completed in 1888, this group of nine burial chapels is the final resting place of princes, princesses, and consorts other than the parents of monarchs. With floors and ceiling of white marble, the tomb of Prince
John of Austria is especially notable. Among the more recent interments is that of
Infante Alfonso in October 1992. The younger brother of King
Juan Carlos I, he was buried originally in Portugal, after being killed in a still-mysterious 1956 shooting at the family home in
Estoril, aged 14. In 1994, King Juan Carlos I signed a decree raising his cousin and close personal friend
Carlos, Duke of Calabria to the status of a Spanish
infante, making him eligible for interment in the Pantheon of the Princes. Upon his death in October 2015, his funeral was held at El Escorial and his body placed in the
pudridero, awaiting future interment in the pantheon. Thirty-seven of the sixty available niches are filled.
Art gallery Contains works of the
German,
Flemish,
Venetian,
Lombard,
Ligurian,
Italian and
Spanish schools from the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. From the beginning, the Royal Library was meant to be a monumental work of art, and its execution was commissioned to prominent architects of the moment:
Juan de Toledo and
Juan de Herrera, who shared the King's
neoplatonic views and who also designed the library's shelves. It constituted, along with the basilica, the heart of the entire project, and the project was redrafted several times to accommodate changes in the organization of the library itself. As was usual for Juan de Herrera's work, it was the most advanced of its kind in Europe. It was the first library on the continent that broke with medieval design.
Domenico Fontana was inspired by Herrera's design, after a visit, for his design of the
Vatican Library. During Philip II's reign, the library introduced a novel way of arranging the library's bookcases or "book presses". Until then most book presses were combined with desks and stood at right angles to the library's walls. This system was known as the "stall system" and allowed light from the library's windows to illuminate the shelves. Phillip's library began using a "wall system", placing the bookcases along the walls. Currently the library has more than 40,000 volumes, located in a great hall in length, wide, and tall, with marble floors and beautifully carved wood shelves. De Herrera and Italian construction engineer Giuseppe Flecha y Gamboa were careful to consider the security of the library's holdings in armarios (large bookcases), as well as their display, safeguards against fire hazards, and use of available natural lighting. This library was a Renaissance statement of power, majesty, prowess, and intellectual world leadership, designed for both the preservation of the old (binding multiple cultural histories into a single Catholic Spanish culture) and discovery of the new (imprinted by that culture). The vault of the library's ceiling is decorated with frescoes, painted by
Pellegrino Tibaldi, depicting the seven
liberal arts:
grammar,
rhetoric,
dialectic,
music,
arithmetic,
geometry, and
astronomy. After that many books were obtained as a "peace price" during the many battles of the
Spanish Empire with the
Ottoman Empire. As part of his active efforts, in 1571 Philip II bought a large portion of the collection of Gonzalo Pérez, one of his advisors. This meant 57 original Greek manuscripts from Sicily, and 112 Latin ones, from Calabria. He also bought 315 original volumes, in Greek and Arabic, from Juan Páez de Castro's personal library. The King charged specific ambassadors with traveling through his empire and neighboring kingdoms searching and buying the best for El Escorial's library. These ambassadors were coordinated by the head librarian, who had total authority to direct their movements, and who stayed in contact with them through all their travels.
Diego Guzmán de Silva was one such ambassador and made one of the most important purchases for the library during his time in Venice: an ancient collection of Greek manuscripts and Latin codices (1569–1577). An inventory prepared in 1576 counted 4,546 volumes, over 2,000 manuscripts, and 2,500 printed books. That same year the library of
Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, the most valuable in Spain at the time, was bought. It included 850 codices and over 1,000 printed volumes. At this point, the size of the library was such that
Benito Arias Montano had to be specially hired to organize the books and classify them by language, in addition to subject. In the 1580s the Library acquired some of its most unique pieces.
Jorge Beteta donated a manuscript of the
Concilios visigóticos (the
Visigothic Councils) from the ninth century. Philip acquired several books from the Library of Granada, that belonged to
Isabella I of Castile, including her
Libro de Horas of astonishing visual beauty. Other valuable libraries acquired by Philip were those of
Pedro Fajardo, and of
Antonio Agustín, one of the largest in Spain at the time. About a thousand of these books are still in El Escorial, with many others having been sent to the Vatican. The King actively purchased rare books—often on esoteric, scientific, or theological subjects—from the East. He also collected and preserved over four hundred books
prohibited by the Inquisition, which he agreed should not be available for those likely to "misunderstand" them but only to experts. By 1602, the library had a large cartographic collection and over 150 mathematical instruments. Philip II left in his
will a pension for the Escorial Library, to ensure that it would still be able to acquire new volumes. Philip III continued his father's policy of protection and enrichment of the library, even though he was not theologically inclined. In addition to continuing the search for, and purchase of, especially valuable and old books, he promulgated a new decree, according to which the library of El Escorial was to receive a copy of every book published inside the empire. During his reign the orders of continuing to search for books for the library were still in place.
Arias Montano donated a large number of original Hebrew manuscripts, and Admiral
Luis Fajardo brought back the complete
Zaydani library captured during his wars with Sultan
Muley Zidán. The library reached its peak under
Philip IV. In 1671 a great fire destroyed 5280
codices; the main hall, in which the printed books were kept, was saved. Among the most important losses were the
Concilios visigóticos and the
Historia natural de las Indias (
Natural History of the Indies), a 19-volume encyclopedia on biology and botany by
Francisco Hernández de Toledo. After the fire, the priest
Antonio de San José spent over 25 years reclassifying and taking inventories of the surviving copies. His list of surviving books counted 45,000. Shortly after, as the Habsburg dynasty came to its end and the
Bourbons took the throne after the
War of the Spanish Succession, a further loss took place, as the Bourbon kings reversed the trend of acquiring books for the library and instead proceeded to take books to send to France or to their own libraries. Currently, the library has over 40,000 volumes. The library includes many important
illuminated manuscripts, such as the
Ottonian Golden Gospels of Henry III (1045–46). The only known copy of the ''
Kitab al-I'tibar'', a 12th-century Syrian autobiography, was found there in the 19th century.
The reliquaries Following a rule approved by the
Council of Trent dealing with the veneration of saints, Philip II donated to the monastery one of the largest
reliquaries in all of Catholic Christendom. The collection consists of some 7,500 relics, which are stored in 570 sculpted reliquaries
Reorganisation In 2024 El Escorial was being reorganised for visitors over two years, funded by €6.5m from the
EU. Instead of using a side entrance, visitors enter through the imposing Patio of Kings courtyard. The Patio of the Evangelists, a garden with fountains and statues, will be open to visitors. The painting and architecture galleries, long dormant, are being reopened, reorganised and revitalised. The building is being updated with LED lighting, electric vehicle charging points, and solar panels. ==Adjacent buildings==