San Lorenzo de El Escorial is still a working monastery today, but it has historically been much more. King Philip II ordered it constructed in the 16th century as a mausoleum for his parents, the Emperor Charles V (a.k.a. Carlos I of Spain) and Isabel of Portugal. Ever since then, it has been the favored burial site of nearly all members of Spain's royal family, all the way up to Juan de Borbon, father of the current king. The resting place of the Spanish royals, the Panteon de los Reyes (Pantheon of Kings), is part of the complex open to tourists. Inseparable from the mausoleum and monastery was Philip II's personal palace. Since so much of El Escorial was envisioned by Philip II, the complex gives great insight into the life of this ruler. The rooms of the palace are simple and austere, as fit Philip's attitude toward his office. He had no crown and refused to be called "your majesty." Although there is a nice collection of paintings from Philip II's time, there are no great Renaissance marvels here, nor are there any Baroque flights of fancy. All the decoration was reserved for the church buildings. For me, the most memorable room of the palace was the map room, indicative of Philip II's character. The classical image of Philip II was of a man dressed in black, sitting at a desk (preserved here), poring over information gathered from all over his empire, which included not only Spain, but also Italy, Mexico, Peru, and the Philippines. Seeing the walls of this room covered with highly detailed, 16th-century maps of places like Japan might be surprising at first, but it's important to remember that Philip ruled a global empire, and was prone to micro-management. San Lorenzo de El Escorial is a magnificent memorial to Spain's golden age. From its globe-spanning empire to its internalized religiosity, this impressive complex is a capsule of the time when Spain was the world's greatest power, and a portrait in stone of one man who ruled it.

A fellow grad student who I met in Barcelona emailed me one day with some news. She was doing research in the monastic library at El Escorial and had happened upon a 14th-century manuscript containing copies of royal letters pertinent to my dissertation topic. Since I was heading up to Madrid for the conference, I decided to take an extra day to go to El Escorial and have a look.

I had already been there as a tourist, but visiting a historic site for research purposes is somewhat different. It's like getting a "behind-the-scenes" tour. Instead of buying a ticket, I showed my Fulbright ID to the security guard and staff, and told them that I was there to use the library. They didn't escort me or anything; they just told me how to get there. Sure, I could have tried to run around on my own, but since the staff ask for your tickets fairly often, I'm sure they would have busted me. But visiting a monastic library was a treat in itself.

Yes, there was a monk there, but the librarians who interact with the public are laymen. You go and sit in the reading room, consult the catalogs (all printed on paper, of course -- no computers!), then request your book. The librarian brought me my 14th-century manuscript and a hard pillow to rest it on. OK, folks -- this book is from the 14th century. This is from before the printing press, so somebody had to sit down and write out hundreds of pages of it by hand. It wasn't decorated at all, like many famous medieval manuscripts are. It was "just" a collection of royal letters, preserved for administrative purposes, and so didn't merit the gold ink and painted pictures that a religious work or historical chronicle would.

The 14th century is also from the days before legible handwriting! Before the printing press, there wasn't a lot of standardization in the shapes of handwritten letters. In order to write speedily, medieval scribes also used a lot of abbreviations and strange symbols. There's a whole subfield of medieval history called paleography that specializes in identifying, based on handwriting styles, where and when a document was written. Paleographers can often identify the exact monastery a document came from, since many of them had unique abbreviations or peculiar letter shapes characteristic of them.

My paleography sucks, so it takes me a long time to read this stuff. I had the librarians scan the pages for me and print out the scans so I could take them with me, and spent the rest of the day looking through the catalogs for anything else that might be helpful. I didn't get to be a tourist in El Escorial that day, but since I'd been there before, I decided to write a review of it (below) based on my memories, my Lonely Planet, and my vast historical knowledge. ;-)  

Wikipedia details: The valley that contains the monument, preserved as a national park, is located 10 km northeast of the royal site of El Escorial, northwest of Madrid. Beneath the valley floor lie the remains of 40,000, whose names are accounted for in the monument's register.

Although the valley contains Nationalist and Republican graves – several former Republicans' bodies were moved there from temporary graves at the end of the war – the tone of the monument is distinctly Nationalist and anti-Communist, containing the inscription "¡Caídos por Dios y por España!" (to "Those who fell for God and for Spain"), reflecting the close ties of Franco's Nationalist regime to the Roman Catholic Church.

Additionally, Franco's timing of his announcement of the decision to create the monument left no doubts: on 1 April 1940, the day of the victory parade to celebrate the first anniversary of his triumph over the Republic, Franco announced his personal decision to raise a splendid monument to those who had fallen in his cause.^[1]

Today, Spain's Socialist Government has been debating plans to redesignate the Valley of the Fallen a "monument to Democracy" or as a memorial to all Spaniards killed in conflict.^[2]

Just a placeholder for now for our trip to El Escorial. Talk about cold! 

Today I decided to go a little farther from Madrid, actually on the outskirts of the "Comunidad de Madrid" area. As routine I rode the metro to the "Atocha" station, and from there boarded a train bound for El Escorial (named after the palace there). In this town you find one of the biggest palaces in Spain. We entered the palace through its basilica, a very large, impressive structure. We then proceeded to the Court of the Kings, a very nicely decorated courtyard, before entering the main palace. Once inside, we rented one of those good audio tours where you press the number the site tells you and gives you a description of it. This palace is absolutely huge!!! They even had small museum incorporated into the premises. I especially liked the architectural section of the museum, since it had various 3-D models of the palace, many drawings, and explanations for both. We then walked into the Pantheon of the Kings, an absolutely beautiful room accessed by a stairwell that gets more lavish and luxurious as you descend. Many of Spain's kings and queens are buried here in glorious marble sepulchers. The whole scene was lit by a large, magnificent candelabrum. After enjoying the awesome room, we went back up the stairs again and went on touring the rest of the palace. The mini art museum was pretty interesting, but mostly showed traditional biblical paintings. One of the most interesting parts of this palace was the "Hall of Battles", a long room with a large wall depicting all the major Spanish victories. It was very amusing looking at all the details like the soldiers, the camps, the front line, the action, etc. Our last stop in the palace was the library, a very sophisticated and lavishly decorated room. The walls and the roof were filled with frescoes, truly a wonderful sight. After touring this awesome, huge palace, we resorted to eating lunch at a nearby cafe, with plenty of cheese and calamari =D. In the afternoon we decided to visit the "Valle de los Caidos", a gigantic memorial dedicated to all the fallen victims of the Spanish Civil War (Francisco Franco's idea). When we were still in the taxi riding towards it, we saw the huge cross getting bigger and bigger as we approached. The cross is situated over a craggy mountain, and the basilica is actually carved into the mountain, (arduous work to build, I imagine). We entered through the main entrance which led to the foyer, decorated with huge, mural-sized tapestries depicting different scenes (using symbols to represent the events). Some are of battles, some of the worship of the lamb (Jesus Christ), etc. There were around 5 of these tapestries on each side of the wall in this great space. Once we walked through the main foyer we reached the dome, a huge structure decorated with golden mosaics on the roof. Here is where the famous Spanish dictator Francisco Franco rests. In the middle of the space below the dome there is a statue of Christ on a cross. I was curious about the structure so I asked a worker about it. She told me that the dome had two layers to prevent water from seeping into the basilica and ruining the mosaics. When I asked her where all the soldiers were buried, she told me that they were buried in the very walls of this basilica. I was shocked to hear that, since the structure was basically reinforced by human bodies!!! After all the adventures in the basilica, I headed out to El Escorial to take the train back to Madrid. When I arrived back in the city I ate a delicious dinner at an Asian styled restaurant called the "Wok". Afterwards I took the metro right back to my hotel.