Real Monasterio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial

Synopsis The El Escorial Monastery is the monument which best represents the ideological and cultural aspirations of the "Spanish Golden Age." During this era, the Spanish Crown, which was the leading world power not only for its dynastic alliances and resulting territorial power in Europe, but also for its control of over almost all the recently discovered American continent, established itself as the main defender of the Catholic Counter-Reformation as opposed to those countries which had embraced the Protestant Reform. The "Catholic" King's struggle for European hegemony, the defense of the traditional religion, and the worship of dynasty and of the Monarch as one of God's chosen people, are strongly reflected in El Escorial by it's original combination of Italian and Flemish artistic forms. Nowadays, El Escorial continues under the royal trust of H.M. the King and its management and tutelage is dealt with by the National Patrimony. - from the book's introduction