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Location Information:
El
Escorial is a historical residence
of the king of Spain. It is one of
the Spanish royal sites and
functions as a monastery, royal
palace, museum, and school. It is
located about 45 kilometres (28
miles) northwest of the Spanish
capital, Madrid, in the town of San
Lorenzo de El Escorial.
El
Escorial comprises two architectural
complexes of great historical and
cultural significance: El Real
Monasterio de El Escorial itself and
La Granjilla de La Fresneda, a royal
hunting lodge and monastic retreat
about five kilometres away. These
sites have a dual nature; that is to
say, during the 16th and 17th
centuries, they were places in which
the temporal power of the Spanish
monarchy and the ecclesiastical
predominance of the Roman Catholic
religion in Spain found a common
architectural manifestation. El
Escorial was, at once, a monastery
and a Spanish royal palace.
Originally a property of the
Hieronymite monks, it is now a
monastery of the Order of Saint
Augustine.
The
basilica of San Lorenzo el Real, the
central building in the El Escorial
complex, was originally designed,
like most of the late Gothic
cathedrals of western Europe, to
take the form of a Latin cross.¹ As
such, it has a long nave on the
west-east axis intersected by a pair
of shorter transepts, one to the
north and one directly opposite, to
the south, 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 the dome of San
Lorenzo el Real at El Escorial.
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 one hundred metres
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 the High Renaissance
and the basilica at El Escorial as a
statement of the stark rigidity and
grim purposefulness of the
Inquisition and the
Counter-Reformation.
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