The New Student's Reference Work/Escurial

Escurial (es-kū′ ri-al) or Escorial (ĕs-kō′-rĭ-al), a monastery, royal palace and burial place of the Spanish kings, situated 31 miles northwest of Madrid, on the slope of the Sierra Guadarrama, 3,700 feet above the sea.  It was built by Philip II, and dedicated to St. Lawrence in memory of a victory which occurred on St. Lawrence’s day.  The main building is 706 feet long and 550 broad.  A smaller square building, used as the royal palace, projects from the east side.  It was begun in 1563 and finished in 1584.  It held one of the finest collections of pictures in Europe until 1837, when a hundred of the best were taken to Madrid.  The burial place of the royal family, called the Pantheon, is an eight-sided room beneath the church.  The kings of Spain, from Charles V to Alfonso XII, all but Philip V and Ferdinand II, are buried here in marble tombs, placed one above another in niches in the wall.  The Escorial was much injured by fire in 1872.