ESCORIAL

 

The massive walls of the interior, relieved only by Doric pilasters with no concession to decorative richness, produced a monument that was austere beyond anything the Italian Renaissance ever envisaged. On the exterior the gigantic scale of the monastery and the severe gray granite walls are forbidding. It is built in the shape of a gridiron to honor the early Christian martyr St. Laurence who was roasted to death on a gridiron.

 

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