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- Philip II wanted to fulfill his father's wish not to be buried in the Cathedral of Granada, where the Catholic Monarchs are buried.
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The monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial is an excellent place for exploring the history of Spain, mainly because it holds what probably is the greatest trace of the reign of king Philip II of Spain.
May 26, 2024 · For centuries after Philip II‘s death, Spanish monarchs continued to leave their mark on El Escorial. Philip IV added the spectacular Pantheon of Kings in the 17th century to serve as the primary burial vault for Spain‘s rulers.
Philip appointed him architect-royal in 1559, and, together, they designed El Escorial as a monument to Spain's role as a center of the Christian world.
Jul 25, 2019 · History. The Escorial was commissioned by Philip II in 1563 to commemorate the defeat of the French at the Battle of St Quentin on the day of San Lorenzo (St. Lawrence, August 10, 1557). Important, too, it fulfilled the wishes of Philip’s father, Charles V, for the construction of a royal mausoleum/ burial place.
What to see in El Escorial: the eighth wonder of the world. The monastic complex is also an exhibition of the power of Philip II, who had his great library and royal pantheons built here: a getaway to one of Spain's most emblematic treasures.
Charles V's son, Philip II, took over the task after his return from Flanders in 1559 and appointed Juan Bautista de Toledo as the royal architect. In 1560 a site was chosen in an agricultural area at the foot of the Sierra de Guadarrama, 2 km from the town of El Escorial, and entrusted to the Order of the Hieronymites the following year.
Period documents reveal the deliberative role of Philip II as a patron of the building, which, due to scholarship since the 1990s, can be understood as part of a wider cultural-political effort to establish a worldly court in Madrid with El Escorial serving as its spiritual anchor.
