ESPAÑA	Spain
Comunidad de Madrid

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San Lorenzo de El Escorial is situated at an elevation of 1,032 m on the southern slopes of the Mount Abantos in the nothwest of the Comunidad de Madrid region about 47 km northwest of Madrid. The settlement is popularly called El Escorial de Arriba, to differentiate it from the neighbouring village of El Escorial, also known as El Escorial de Abajo. The municipality of San Lorenzo de El Escorial has a population of about 18,200 (2015).

The history of San Lorenzo de El Escorial is inexorably linked to the construction of the monastery and the town named El Escorial. The construction of houses, expressly prohibited in the outskirts of the monastery, was the cause of a dispute that faced the municipal authorities, who promoted a modification of the rules, and those who sought to restrict new construction. The subject was particularly delicate in those days, given the frequent visits of the Royal family to the site; these visits led to an increase in demand for land to build houses and support buildings mainly for civil servants working in the Royal household. The resolution of the conflict came from King Carlos III, who, on 3 May 1767, authorized housing next to the market of the monastery, which was the birth of the municipality of San Lorenzo de El Escorial and the beginning of a process which culminated in the emancipation of the town from El Escorial. In 1836, San Lorenzo de El Escorial became an independent municipality.

The Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial [left] is one of the Spanish royal sites (‘reales sitios’) and functions as a monastery, royal palace, museum, and school. About 5 km abway, La Granjilla de La Fresneda, a royal hunting lodge and monastic retreat, also belongs to the El Escorial. During the 16th and 17th centuries, the sites were places in which both the power of the Spanish monarchy and the ecclesiastical predominance of the Roman Catholic religion in Spain found a common architectural manifestation. Philip (Felipe) II of Spain engaged the Spanish architect, Juan Bautista de Toledo, to be his collaborator in the design of El Escorial. Juan Bautista had spent the greater part of his career in Rome, where he had worked on the basilica of St. Peter’s, and in Naples. 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. The building’s cornerstone was laid on 23 April 1563. With Toledo’s death in 1567, direction passed to his apprentice, Juan de Herrera, under whom the building was completed in 1584, in less than 21 years. The floor plan of the building is in the form of a gridiron. The traditional belief is that this design was chosen in honor of St. Lawrence, who, in the 3rd century AD, was martyred by being roasted to death on a grill. El Escorial occupies an area of 333,327 square metres and has 16 patios, 88 sources, 13 oratorios, 15 cloisters, 86 stairs, 9 towers, 1,200 doors and 2,673 windows. Its main façade is 207 metres in length. The most important parts of the buildin include the Pantheon of Kings, the Royal Basilica and royal library.

El Escorial has been the burial site for most of the Spanish kings of the last five centuries, Habsburgs as well as Bourbons. The Royal Pantheon contains the tombs of Holy Roman Emperor Karl (Charles) V (r. 1519–1556, who ruled Spain as King Carlos I 1516–1556), Felipe (Philip) II (r. 1556–1598), Felipe III (r. 1598–1621), Felipe IV (r. 1621–1665), Carlos II (r. 1665–1700), Luis I (r. 1724), Carlos III (r. 1759–1788), Carlos IV (r. 1788–1808), Fernando VII (r. 1808; 1813–1833), Isabel II (r. 1833–1868), Alfonso XII (r. 1874–1885), and Alfonso XIII (r. 1886–1931). Not buried in the monastery are two Bourbon kings, Felipe V (r. 1700–1724; buried in the collegiate church of the La Granja palace) and Fernando VI (r. 1746–1759; buried in the Iglesia de las Salesas Reales in Madrid), as well as King Amadeo (r. 1870–1873; buried in the Basilica di Superga in Torino, Italy) from the House of Savoy.

The monastery and its historic surroundings were declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984, under the name of “El Escorial, monastery and site”.

[https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Lorenzo_de_El_Escorial, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Lorenzo_de_El_Escorial; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Escorial]