Text, translated from the 1603 Latin, 1606 English 1608/1612Italian, the 1609/1612 Spanish and Latin and the 1624 Latin Parergon/1641 Spanish [but with Latin text] editions:
233.0. [the following text occurs at the end of the previous map, Daphne, but clearly applies to the present map]{1624LParergon only{TYPOGRAPHUS LECTORI. VETERI Geographiæ noua Potentissimi Regis Moles coronidem imponat; & post Thessalicorum Tempe & Daphnes Antiochenæ delicias, amnißimus in Hispania locus, sed sanctitate pariter illustris , haud nimis extra ordinem spectetur: vt saltem Regij Cosmographi in Regio Monasterio delineando labor,cum reliquis eius Tabulis Geographicis perennet}1624LParergon only}.
233.1 {1603L{The KINGS MONASTERY of Saint Laurentius, for Friars of the order of Saint Hieronymus, in Escurial in Spain.
233.2. Old stories talk much about the seven wonders of the world, which have been much bragged about, yet, {1606E & 1608/1612I only{(such is the fickleness of fortune)}1606E & 1608/1612I only}, at this day they have all disappeared and through the course of time have come to nothing, so that now not any monument remains, nor reference to them at all. This age of ours also has certain wonders and strange things, {1606E only{equal or superior to most of those [of the past]}1606E only}. Spain, among others, {1603L, 1608/1612I, 1609/1612S/L & 1624LParergon have instead{which we will discuss now}1603L, 1608/1612I, 1609/1612S/L & 1624LParergon} has a most stately and royal building, a work worthy of the Catholic King, of infinite cost and charges, consecrated to holy and religious uses, namely a Church, not like that which was built {not in 1608/1612I{in Asia some time ago}not in 1608/1612I}, dedicated to the Ephesian Diana, and finally set on fire and destroyed by Herostratus, but one which is equally gorgeous and sumptuous, dedicated to Saint Laurentius, that zealous martyr and to the glory of the Spanish nation that they crave about so much.
233.3. The cause of its dedication, so they say, was a vow. For on the campaign to Saint Quentin, the metropolitan and chief city of Vermandois {1608/1612I only{in Picardia}1608/1612I only}, undertaken by the Catholic King Philip the Second of the house of Austria against Henry the second, the French king, a notable battle was fought between the French and the Burgundians, in the year of our Lord 1557. On the tenth day of August, the flower of chivalry and the chief Nobility of France was slain and overcome, and the victory fell to Philip and his Burgundians {1603L, 1608/1612I, 1609/1612S/L & 1624LParergon have instead{Austrians}1603L, 1608/1612I, 1609/1612S/L & 1624LParergon instead} and this victory was such that I am unable to say whether the House of Austria ever saw a greater one or not.
233.4. This day, every year, has been declared a holy day for Saint Laurentius the martyr, to whom and to whose good prayers this good Prince [Philip] attributes that he could behold his victory. Therefore, as soon as the king had returned home, remembering his vow, saw to it that, above anything else, he carried out his promise made to God and to his holy Martyr Saint Laurentius. Therefore he implemented it [=this building] very magnificently and most beautifully, expending costs and bestowing many years and almost infinite treasures so that now it is not just one building, namely a most gorgeous and stately Monastery, but four, according to the number of corners of the building, next to a marvellous royal Palace including a library, well stocked with various ancient manuscripts and rare books.
233.5. The village {1608/1612I & 1624LParergon only{at the foot of a mountain}1608/1612I & 1624LParergon only} which by reason of the great multitude of labourers and workmen of all trades which resorted to it, now has become a pretty town, commonly called ESCVRIAL (Escuriacum in Latin) is five miles from Madrid {1608/1612I has instead{15 miles from Mantua in Carpetania where the king of Toledo lives, now called Madrid}1608/1612I instead}. {not in 1608/1612I{This is an ancient settlement which Ptolemæus in his time called Mantua Carpetanorum}not in 1608/1612I} {1624LParergon{now called Madrid}1624LParergon}. Around it are various very steep and high hills, out of which almost all the stone was dug that was used for this building. The Friars who inhabit and possess these monasteries are of the order of Saint Hieronymus. They very devotedly every day at nine in the choir of that Church sing Psalms and pour out their prayers to God Almighty for the health and preservation of all Christian Princes. There also the King has established a University, and has allowed a large maintenance not only for the Possessors and Readers of Divinity, Philosophy and other liberal sciences, but also for its scholars and students.
233.6. Yet it is no resort, being purposely built fairly distant from the highway, lest a great flocking of strangers to it, as often happens, should corrupt the manners and minds of the students, or alienate them from their books. But let us proceed to some details well worth mentioning.
233.7. Within the inner Court at the front side of the building you shall see an excellent cloister or walk covered overhead which begins at the West side of the Abbey and runs all along the North side, paved with stones partly round and partly square. The front and chief side of this Abbey is towards the West, and at the four corners of the building there are four turrets. Over the front door of this church, on their respective pedestals, stand the statues or sculptures of the six kings of Israel, carved out of white marble and black stone, each of them eighteen feet high. The great porch of this Abbey, upheld and laid on pillars with Ionic and Doric work, is all of Great or black Agate {not in 1606E{from Thracia}not in 1606E}.
233.8. On the North side there is a Courtyard through which you go to the Kings palace, the four walks of the College and the University, all of which have been built on this North side. Here you will also see some of the shops and work houses of those handicrafts [people], tradesmen and others that belong to the Church and College as well as to the Monastery. On the South side also, there are certain gardens, orchards, the walk going to the Hospital, certain Distilling houses, an Apothecary shop and a gallery through which you pass from the Monastery to the parlour. Let us now pass on to the inner ornaments of this stately piece of work.
233.9. And first, [using] the stairs going up from the great door of the Church, [you reach] a splendid gallery, leading to the open walk which there is between the College, the Monastery will offer itself to your view. In this gallery you may go up a broad flight of stairs to get into the Church, and from there you come to another floor which leads to the cross entry which is in front of the Church from where those of the Monastery go one way, those of the College another way into the church, and then from there into the lower room of the Choir. The shape or platform of this Choir is square, having within the square three Cloisters. Near this place of the lower Choir there is on each side an open Court, from where the lower Choir and the two Chapels situated at this Court receive their light. In this Choir there are two stately Altars. Above this Choir, which is arched, there is another Church with a Choir belonging to it.
233.10. This Church beside the great Chapel, the Inner and Outer rooms of the Choir, is square, supported by four pillars and other necessary support and upholding. In it are two pairs of organs, each of them having, as they call them, thirty-two Registers. Further, there are in this Church thirty-six Altars, with a most stately Door, through which they go into the great lower Vault at those times that prayers are said. This Church is thirty feet higher than the lower Choir, and the upper Choir is as many feet higher than the Church itself. The floor is laid with chequered-like white marble and a kind of black stone, in the same manner as the floors of the outer and inner Choirs.
233.11. Here are to be seen diverse and various Service books and Mass books, both written [by hand] and printed, and many others belonging to such Church business. On the roof of this Choir the Sun, the Moon, the Stars and all the heavenly bodies are most splendidly painted, as is also the case with the walls, showing the portraits of various virtues, which are so cunningly portrayed that one would think them to be live persons, next to certain histories of Saint LAVRENTIVS and Saint HIERONYMVS. The seats are made of very fine wood, carved and decorated with twisted pillars of Corinthian work, most artistically [done].
233.12. On the South side of the Church is the Porch door, beautified and adorned with various excellent pictures. In this Porch is a Fountain, made of various kinds of stone and marble, running at seven cocks for the use and benefit of those who intend to go to Mass there. The floor is paved and garnished with black and white marble. The Vestry is also a very stately place and richly adorned, containing various suitcases and chests which are laid up and filled with the copes, vestments and other ornaments belonging to the altars and Priests which they put on when they say Mass. Out of this vestry they go up to the high altar, which stands on a loft in the upper end of the Church. The place where this altar stands is paved with the best jasper stone of various colours.
233.13. Certain Chapels and closets are adjoined to this, where the Noblemen and Royalty sit to hear mass. This way they go into the Chapel which is at the North side of the church, where all kinds of precious reliques of Saints are kept, enclosed in their various chests and boxes. Similarly for everything on the South side. Close to the high altar there is a small room, most richly adorned, where the holy communion is administrated. Within this room by the altar there is a closet where the Sacrament is kept and preserved, adorned most stately with seven {1603L, 1609/1612S/L & 1624LParergon have instead{eight}1603L, 1609/1612S/L & 1624LParergon instead} pillars, of the best jasper, and the statues of the twelve Apostles as exquisitely wrought as art might devise.
233.14. The Doors of this closet are made from the best and purest Crystal, which they call Crystal of the mountain, enclosed and hung in certain hinges of cast metal, double guilded and laid over with gold. This work is thought to be the most splendid and artful that can be seen in all the world. The surveyor and famous architect of this building, Master Iacobus de Trezzo, was [busy] for six whole years in cutting and polishing the jasper which was used for this building only. The high altar is a work as costly and splendid as this one, made in a similar manner of jasper and marble, and garnished with various stately pictures and statues.
233.15. The MONASTERY or place of residence for the monks and friars, has a very excellent steeple in which they hung a fine set of Bells with a Clock and a Dial with an Index showing the Natural and Planetary hours. The Ward, Hall or Room here where the monks and friars come to dine and take supper, with the spittle, are most excellently built with Corners, Galleries and Walks. Moreover, there is a fair Cloister or Square, where public prayers are daily read. In the middle of this square is a very fine garden, most artistically divided into beds and splendid plots. In the middle of it is an excellent piece of work built with eight corners, in the manner of a temple, with fountains of the best jasper.
233.16. To this cloister is adjoined the Chapter house, with another room very much like it. The seats of the monks are round at the sides, but the Seat of the Prior is much better than the rest. It is a famous piece of work, made of marble, gloriously adorned with pictures and excellently arched over the head. The LIBRARY which is above the Abbey is 185 feet long, and 32 feet wide. It has three different rooms. In the first all the Liberal Sciences have been accommodated. Below every picture are the Books of that faculty, very orderly and finely placed, all of them guilded and bound alike. Here also is a huge parchment book in which all kinds of living creatures that are in the whole world to be seen, are most excellently drawn and expressed in their true and lively colours.
233.17. In the Second [there] are only manuscript books in Latin, Greek and Hebrew, on Divinity. In the beginning of each book one finds the picture or portrait of its author. In the same way, the third room is furnished only with manuscript copies of various writers, on different topics, in a variety of languages, namely Historiographers, Poets, Mathematicians &c. These also have, where they might possibly be obtained, the lively portraits or pictures of their authors depicted. This library was much augmented by the addition of the Library of Didacus Hurtadus Mendoza, who, having been for some time Ambassador for Charles the fifth, Emperor of Rome, to the Venetians, received from the High country of Greece a ship full of Greek manuscript copies. Thus, excepting the Vatican in Rome, which is the Pope's Library, there is not, as most people think, a more stately and better furnished library than this one in all of Europe{1603L, 1608/1612I, 1609/1612S/L & 1624LParergon have instead{the World}1603L, 1608/1612I, 1609/1612S/L & 1624LParergon instead}.
233.18. I come now to the UNIVERSITY and the KINGS PALACE, both of which are on the North side. In the UNIVERSITY there are three different Schools or Halls, where the three most famous and worthy arts Divinity, Law and Physics {1603L, 1608/1612I, 1609/1612S/L & 1624LParergon have instead{medecine}1603L, 1608/1612I, 1609/1612S/L & 1624LParergon instead} are taught by their various respective Lecturers, next to the other liberal Arts which together with them are here taught and expounded to the younger kind of students. To this is joined a Free school for Grammar scholars, with various other court yards, and halls or dining rooms.
233.19. The PALACE is so situated that from there you may easily go to the Church, the College and the monastery. It would be a long story to describe the various lodgings of the King, the Ambassadors, Controllers, Chamberlains, Noblemen, Pensioners, Yeomen of the guard and other Officers belonging to the Court. The kings gallery opens towards the North side of the Church on the wall of which is painted the battle at Higueruela in which King Ioannes the Second overcame the Moors of Granada.
233.20. This picture does so lively express the whole story and everything in it as it happened as to be most wonderful. It shows in what order and how the main battle was conducted, where the Horsemen, Footmen, the Pikemen, the Targeters, [and] the Archers, which were then in great demand, stood, and where each of them charged the enemy. This piece of work was made at the command of Philip the second, king of Spain, by an old pattern drawn on a piece of linen cloth of one hundred and thirty feet long, found in the tower of Segovia, which was first drawn at the time that this battle was fought.
233.21. Moreover, on the East and South sides of this building, there is a most excellent and pleasant garden, adorned and beautified with various arches, {1603L, 1608/1612I, 1609/1612S/L & 1624LParergon only{100 feet wide, and with}1603L, 1608/1612I, 1609/1612S/L & 1624LParergon only} rare herbs, flowers and fountains. To this garden is adjoined an Orchard planted and provided with all kinds of trees. Within the precincts of this monastery there are more than forty fountains. Such is the wonderful number of Keys and Locks of this building, which amount to several thousands, that there is a specific and proper Officer to look after them only, called The Master of the Keys.
233.22. The form of the monastery is four-square, and every side is two hundred and twenty {1603L, 1609/1612S/L & 1624LParergon have instead{224}1603L, 1609/1612S/L & 1624LParergon instead}{1608/1612I instead{234}1608/1612I instead} paces long. Only that side which is next to the Palace was purposely made shorter than the other three, so that the circumference or external shape of the Abbey might represent the form of the square of a gridiron, because St. Laurentius, to whom the building was dedicated, was broiled to death on a gridiron. {not in 1624LParergon{The monks, who number three hundred, and as I have told before belong to the order of St. Hieronymus, inhabit no more than one third of the whole building.
233.23. Their yearly revenues amount to 35,000 {1603L, 1608/1612I & 1609/1612S/L only{Spanish}1603L, 1608/1612I & 1609/1612S/L only} Ducats. The other part of the revenues they bestow on the king and his family}not in 1624LParergon}. To conclude, it is furnished with so many Halls, Parlours, Chambers and other closets and rooms as are needed in a house, that there is room enough to entertain and lodge four Kings and their Courts at once, so that it may rightly claim the first place among the greatest miracles of the world}1624LParergon ends here}.
233.23a. {1608/1612I only{Intorno alla fabrica di questa soprammirabile Chiesa, soggiunge Filippo Pigafetta esseruisi trouato, all'hor che il Trezzo trauigliana in quelle colonne di diaspro, lunge ....... co'capitelli & basi d'oro. Lauorauansi al torno con diamanti in vece di ferri, che reggean la durezza loro; anzi essi ancora vi si consumauano. Il Tabernaculo è collocato sopra il grande altare, con l'vna facciata in fuore verso la Chiesa, & l'altra di dentro, oue s'apre la porticella, per cui si trahe & ripone la sacratissima hostia, che sta in vno calice co'l pie di notabile grandezza à guisa di coppa, tutto di Zafiro.
233.23b. Li campanili son due, nell'vno ver il monasterio segnan le campane ordinarie gli vffici diuini, & nell'altro con 60 campane grosse, mezane & picciolette, in sottil maniera con tasti disposte, Giouanni Fiamingo Organista suonaua Motetti, Mandriali, & simili canzoni, con stupore de gli ascoltanti. La Chiesa rade volte s'apre, & s'ode la Messa dal Choro basso, chiuso da cancelli di ferro. Nulla mention fa Francisco Sweertio F. delle Tombe & sepolture quiui sotto il Choro alto situate per gl'ossi de Reali d'Austria; & in esso Choro, & nella maggior capella li loro nomi & Epitafi, con lumi eterni, & orationi continue.
233.23c. Le sei smisurate colonne dinanzi alla facciata della Chiesa furon scolpite in quella bruna pietre, che chiamasi Marouegno, di non dotta mano. Lo spatio doue s'ampia la principal piazza dinanzi felciata per quadri, quasi ad opra di Musaico era monte; spianato & via portato il terren da lunge, sublimando altro monte, si che ben si potrebbe rinouellar il motto della colonna figurata qui in Roma nel foro di Traiano ò piazza: Ad declarandum quantæ altitudinis mons & locus tantis operibus sit egestus.
233.23d. Scelse il Re quella contrada al pie delle montagne di Segouia, (che partendosi dal Pireneo con alta schiena & dosso neuoso s'attuffan nell'Oceano di Portogallo, distinguendo la noua Castiglia dalla vecchia) per tioche vi scaturiscon acque in sourabondantia; & li boschi, & ismisurati massi & balzi di pietra bruna da trarne colonni grandi, prestan materia per la fabrica. L'aere è men salutifero, non spirandoui liberamente li venti sotto quei gioghi, & innasprendosi il verno: tuttauia li Frati mantengonsi co'l mutar assai souente alloggiamento. Quiui presso mezo miglio corre la via maestra per Castiglia, trauersante li gioghi, tra quali in selue horride & folte il palazzo Reale, detto il bosco di Segouia, dona ricreatione alli Re nella stagion calda: & nella pianura, per la volta di Madrid, il Pardo, & Araniuez, due altri bellissimi palazzi son le dilitie loro & la casa del campo}1608/1612I only}.
233.24. FINIS}1603L} [= the end] © Marcel van den Broecke ©.