Brief synthesisBuilt at the end of the 16th century, the Escurial Monastery stands in an exceptionally beautiful site at the foothills of the Sierra de Guadarrama, north of Madrid. Philip II founded the monastery in 1563 as a votive monument and pantheon to the Spanish monarchs from the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V onwards. The royal site includes the monastery, a stone complex of extraordinary dimensions surrounded by formal gardens and the monks’ gardens, the House of Trades, and the Company Quarters where the palace and monastery services were accommodated. Criterion (i): The Monastery and Site of the Escurial, Madrid, represents a masterpiece of human creative genius, where the great collective work of important artists were subject to the will and orders of the historic figure of King Philip II. Criterion (ii): The Monastery and Site of the Escurial expresses an important interchange of human values, and symbolises the ideological and artistic expression that influenced developments in architecture, monumental arts, and landscape design during the Spanish Golden Age.