page_title: Spanish architecture
section_title: Renaissance
hierarchical_section_title: Spanish architecture / Renaissance
caption_attribution_description: English: The royal site of San Lorenzo de El Escorial is a big complex (palace, monastery, museum and library) located in San Lorenzo de El Escorial, a village situated approx. 45 km north west of Madrid, in the Comunidad de Madrid in Spain.
context_page_description: Spanish architecture refers to architecture in any area of what is now Spain, and by Spanish architects worldwide. The term includes buildings which were constructed within the current borders of Spain prior to its existence as a nation, when the land was called Iberia, Hispania, Al-Andalus or was divided between several Christian kingdoms. Drawing from many different sources, Spanish architecture demonstrates great historical and geographical diversity. Spanish architecture tended to develop along similar lines as other architectural styles around the Mediterranean and from Northern Europe.
  A real development came with the arrival of the Romans, who left behind some of their most outstanding monuments in Hispania. The arrival of the Visigoths brought about a profound decline in building techniques which was paralleled in the rest of the former Roman Empire. The Muslim conquest in 711 CE led to a radical change and for the following eight centuries there were great advances in culture, including architecture. For example, Córdoba was established as the cultural capital of its time under the Umayyad dynasty.
context_section_description: In Spain, Renaissance styles began to be grafted onto Gothic forms in the last decades of the 15th century. The forms that started to spread were made mainly by local architects: that is the cause of the creation of a specifically Spanish Renaissance that brought the influence of southern Italian architecture, sometimes from illuminated books and paintings, mixed with the gothic tradition and local idiosyncrasies. The new style was called Plateresque because of the extremely decorated façades that brought to the mind the decorative motifs of the intricately detailed work of silversmiths, the "plateros". Classical orders and candelabra motifs (a candelieri) were combined freely into symmetrical wholes.
  In that scenery, the Palace of Charles V by Pedro Machuca in Granada was an unexpected achievement in the most advanced Renaissance of the moment. The palace can be defined as an anticipation of the Mannerism, due to its command of classical language and its breakthrough aesthetic achievements. It was constructed before the main works of Michelangelo and Palladio. Its influence was very limited and poorly understood, the Plateresque forms prevailed in the general panorama.
  As decades passed, the Gothic influence disappeared and the research of an orthodox classicism reached high levels. Although Plateresque is a commonly used term to define most of the architectural production of the late 15th and first half of 16th century, some architects acquired a more sober personal style, like Diego Siloe and Rodrigo Gil de Hontañón. Examples include the façades of the University of Salamanca and of the Convent of San Marcos in León.
  The highlight of Spanish Renaissance is represented by the Royal Monastery of El Escorial, built by Juan Bautista de Toledo and Juan de Herrera, where a much closer adherence to the art of ancient Rome was overpassed by an extremely sober style. The influence from Flanders roofs, the symbolism of the scarce decoration and the precise cut of the granite established the basis for a new style, the Herrerian. A disciple of Herrera, Juan Bautista Villalpando was influential for interpreting the recently revived text of Vitruvius to suggest the origin of the classical orders in Solomon's Temple.
caption: El Escorial
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