Escu´rial

(Sp. el Escorial ), a remarkable building in Spain, comprising at once a palace, a convent, a church, and a mausoleum. It is distant from Madrid about 24 miles in a north-westerly direction, and situated on the acclivity of the Sierra Guadarrama, the range of mountains which divides New from Old Castile. It was built by Philip II, and dedicated to St. Lawrence, in commemoration of the victory of St. Quentin, fought on the festival of the saint in 1557. It is popularly considered to be built on the plan of a gridiron, from the fact that St. Lawrence is said to have been broiled alive on a sort of large gridiron. The building is a rectangular parallelogram measuring 744 feet in length by 580 feet in breadth. The interior is divided into courts, formerly inhabited by monks and ecclesiastics, while a projection 460 feet in length (the handle of the gridiron) contains the royal palace. It was begun in 1563 and finished in 1584. It is of moderate height, and its innumerable windows (said to be 11,000) give it (apart from the church) somewhat the aspect of a large mill or barracks. The church is the finest portion of the whole building. The dome is 60 feet in diameter, and its height at the centre is about 320 feet. Under it is the Pantheon or family vault of the Spanish sovereigns. The library contains a valuable collection, including a rich store of Arabic MSS. The Escurial was partly burned in 1671, when many MSS. were destroyed, and was pillaged by the French in 1808 and 1813. It was restored by Ferdinand VII, but the monks, with their revenues which supported it, have long since disappeared. In 1872 it was fired by lightning, and suffered serious damage.—Cf. A. F. Calvert, The Escorial . 289