The secret of the grandeur of the Escorial Church is in the conception and proportion, but also from the point of view of architectural beauty it is the finest of the several buildings within the walls. The vaulted roof is ornamented with the frescoes of Luca Giordano, and the screen, which is 93 feet high by 43 wide, monopolised the energies of Giacomo Trezzo of Milan for seven years. The high altar and its superb _retablo_ are flanked on either side by the oratories of marble for the royal family, above which are placed bronze-gilt effigies of Charles V. and his wife, Philip II. and his fourth wife and their children, inlaid with marbles and precious stones. Here, in his epitaph, is Philip of Spain’s challenge to future kings to surpass him in greatness and power. In the Library are his devotional books, and high up on a pinnacle above the chapel is a plate of gold, placed there to show that the building of the Escorial had not left ‘the holy founder’ penniless.
Just beyond the precincts of the church, as one enters the palace, is the ‘Room of the Founder,’--the name given to the apartment occupied by Philip II. whenever he visited the monastery--a simple cell rather than a chamber befitting a king. It was in this room that he died on September 13, 1598. On the wall is a slab with the following inscription:--
‘En este estrecho recinto murió Felipe segundo, cuando era pequeño el mundo al hijo de Carlos quinto.’
There still remain the bedroom he had built next to the royal oratory; the study, some of the chairs he used, and two chairs without arms on which he used to repose the leg in which he had gout. The ceiling is smooth and without ornaments; the walls are whitewashed, and the floor is of brick. From this bedroom the high altar can be seen through two doors that lead to the galleries.
The palace contains a series of small rooms, the most remarkable of which are a set of four. The other apartments are covered with beautiful tapestry made from designs by Rubens, Teniers, and Goya, but the walls of these particular rooms are covered with the finest inlaid woodwork. The hinges, locks, and handles of the doors are in gilt-bronze and steel, and the ceilings are painted by Maella. The entire work is said to have cost £280,000.