Эскориал — идея, образ, стиль королевской резиденции Филиппа II

Abstract

The paper explores the architecture of King Philip II royal residence. El Escorial monastery palace represents a system of art treasures of the Spanish Renaissance, manifested in the method of implementing the figurative absolutization of the Classical aesthetics, revealing the ideas of the magnificence of the “Roman spirit” of the Habsburg empire. By reinterpreting the legacy of the theory of architectural rules, El Escorial was the standard of classical construction in late 16th century Spain. The Christian ideas become the cement of the Empire governance. It is symbolic that the year of the completion of Trento Cathedral (1563) was also the year the construction of El Escorial had begun. The first executor of the project was the architect, philosopher, and mathematician Juan Bautista de Toledo, who studied in Rome and Naples under the masters of the Italian Renaissance. He was later replaced by Juan de Herrera, the acclaimed spokesman of the royal architectural style. The paper covers the most controversial issues: problems of the ensemble concept, their interpretations, the role of theoretical sources, biblical semantics, etc.