The Renaissance of Empire in Early Modern Europe by Dandelet Thomas James

Author:Dandelet, Thomas James [Dandelet, Thomas James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2014-04-29T16:00:00+00:00

3.2. Spanish School, view of El Escorial, Seventeenth Century. (Photograph: Album/Art Resource, NY.)

At the same time, there are obvious features of El Escorial that set it apart from the main precedent of the imperial palace in Spain, that of Charles V. With its Flemish-inspired towers and austere, unadorned exterior, the first impression that it gives is not of an Italian Renaissance palace transplanted in Spain. The palace in Granada projected the secular power and image of a Roman emperor first and foremost as it successfully sought to make a strong political and cultural statement. By way of contrast, El Escorial projected by size, grandeur, decoration, and use the power of an imperial Spanish Catholic monarch. Religious symbolism and use were absent in Granada. In El Escorial, they were pervasive.

Although the use of the classical orders in both Granada and El Escorial represents the continuities between the imperial Renaissance in early and later sixteenth-century Spain, the differences in religious function of the two complexes reveal substantial transformations in the image of the Spanish monarchy in the latter period. From the beginning, Philip II planned El Escorial as a royal complex that included a monastery, a large church, a library, a mausoleum, and a palace for himself and his family. In the case of Granada, Charles V had a cathedral-mausoleum project in the city, but it was separate from his palace, which was meant primarily to house his own family and court. What model or models inspired Philip II?

In merging the ecclesiastical and royal buildings at El Escorial and by giving the Church of Saint Lawrence such a dominant and central position in the complex, Philip II was most closely following the model of the Vatican and papal monarchy. Famously few documents exist that allow us to know the king’s exact models, inspirations, or intentions for the design of El Escorial. Smaller precedents existed in Leon for a royal mausoleum and palace complex; in Madrid the monarchs kept an apartment in the monastery and church of San Jeronimo; and Charles V had retired at Yuste combining his imperial residence with a monastery.

But in terms of scale, aesthetics, and function, the El Escorial complex most closely compared with the Vatican in the latter half of the sixteenth century. If Philip II was competing with any other monarch, it was the papal prince. Both complexes had buildings to house the communities of religious to serve them and their churches in life and to pray for them after their deaths; substantial libraries and art collections; monumental Renaissance churches decorated with fine paintings and sculpture that enjoyed pride of place; mausoleums for their predecessors and themselves; sumptuous palace quarters graced by substantial collections of Renaissance art and decoration celebrating the deeds of the respective monarchies; and spacious interior courtyards as well as exterior gardens.

Philip II closely followed Roman affairs, and he continued the practice begun by Charles V of sending part of the receipts from the sale of the crusade indulgence in Spanish lands for the building of New St.

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