El Escorial is a historical residence of the King of Spain located in the town of San Lorenzo de El Escorial about 45 kilometres northwest of Madrid.
It comprises of two architectural complexes of great historical and cultural significance:
These sites have a dual nature; that is to say, during the 16th and 17th centuries, they were places in which the power of the Spanish monarchy and the ecclesiastical predominance of the Roman Catholic religion in Spain found a common architectural manifestation. El Escorial was, at once, a monastery and a Spanish royal palace, although Philip II is the only monarch who ever lived in the main building. Established with a community of Hieronymite monks, it has become a monastery of the Order of Saint Augustine. It was also a boarding school (Real Colegio de Alfonso XII).
Philip II of Spain (who reigned 1556–1598) engaged the Spanish architect Juan Bautista de Toledo to be his collaborator in the building of the complex at El Escorial. Toledo had spent the greater part of his career in Rome, where he had worked on St. Peter's Basilica, and in Naples serving the king's viceroy, whose recommendation brought him to the king's attention. 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.
In 1984, UNESCO declared The Royal Seat of San Lorenzo of El Escorial a World Heritage Site. More than 500,000 visitors come to El Escorial every year.
There is in the building the Pantheon of the Princes. Completed in 1888, this group of nine burial chapels is the final resting place of princes, princesses and consorts other than the parents of monarchs. With floors and ceiling of white marble, the tomb of Prince John of Austria is especially notable. Among the more recent interments is that of Infante Alphonse in October 1992. The younger brother of King Juan Carlos I, he was buried originally in Portugal, after being killed in the 1956 shooting at the family home in Estoril.
In 1994, King Juan Carlos I signed a decree raising his cousin and close personal friend Carlos, Duke of Calabria to the status of a Spanish infante, making him eligible for interment in the Pantheon of the Princes. Upon his death in October 2015, his funeral was held at El Escorial and his body placed in the pudridero, awaiting future interment in the pantheon. High altar of Basilica Thirty-seven of the sixty available niches are filled.
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