ESCORIAL, Span. pron. es-kei-ri-nl' (Sp.. from escoria, slag, from Lat. scoria, Gk. aKcopia, sk6ria, slag). A celebrated monastery and palace in Spain (El real snonastcrio da San. Lorenzo del Escorial). In gratitude to Saint Laurence, on whose day (August 10, 1557) the victory of Saint Quentin had been gained, Philip II. of Spain erected the Escorial. which to the present day squats with its monotonous, savage, granite walls on a bleak height sonic 27 miles to the northwest of Madrid. Fanci fully designed to resemble the famous gridiron on which Saint Laurence was martyred, the Esco rial is a huge parallelogram, 7SG feet by 623, with tall towers at the angles, symbolic of the feet of the gridiron, immense interior courts representing the intervals between the bars and a protruding line of buildings on the east, indicat ing the handle. The Escorial comprises a mag nificent church, a royal palace, a royal tomb, a college and a monastery. The principal entrance to the Escorial is in the middle of the western facade, and opens only to admit the King on his first visit to the place, and a second time to receive his body in death. The church is a noble structure 340 feet in length by 200 in width, with a cupola GO feet in diameter towering 320 feet in the air. Its interior was formerly rich with marble figures and bronzes, and masterly frescoes by Giordano and Pellegrini. Most precious of all is a life-size image of Christ on the cross, done in ivory by Benvenuto Cellini.
Very interesting is a little royal chamber open ing on the choir, where Philip on his sick-bed and on his death-bed heard through an open door the mass intoned. Below- the high altar of the church is the Pantheon or royal tomb, an octagonal chamber with niches containing black sarcophagi in which rest the bodies of all the kings of Spain since the Emperor Charles V., with the exception of Philip V. and Ferdinand VI. The palace of the Escorial was rich in treasures of painting, and contained works of Raphael, Rubens, Velasquez, Titian, and Tinto retto. The library, which was under the care of the monks of Saint Jerome (driven out by the French), comprised 30,000 volumes and 4500 manuscripts, concerned mostly with Arabic litera ture. The Escorial was begun in 1563 and took twenty years in building. Its original designer, .Tuan Bautista de Toledo, died in the interval. but the work was completed by his pupil ,Juan Her rera. It has been repeatedly added to or repaired, until it represents to-clay an outlay of over $10, 000,000. Fire and lightning have frequently vis ited it, the French in 1SOS plundered it, hut it still stands a monument to its original builder, Philip TI. Consult: Santos, Dem-rim-Wm del real monasterio de San Lorenzo del Escorial (Madrid, IfIS 1 ) ; Rotondo, Hisiorin dcl monastcrio de San Lurcczo (Madrid,