2023-09-18 06:05:41
The Royal Monastery of El Escorial was originally born with the intention, beyond commemorating the victory of San Quentin on the French, to serve as a tomb for the kings and relatives of the Habsburg dynasty. In 1573, Philip II had the remains of his father, Charles I, and other Habsburgs transferred to the temple to be reunited in a primitive tomb that, almost a century later, Philip IV would replace with the current and attractive one. Real Crypt.
Not in vain, before the Royal Pantheon and that of the Infantes, which has served as a resting place for the mortal remains of the vast majority of members of the Spanish Royal Family, there is a room always shrouded in mystery: the rotting room, where The bodies must wait approximately 30 years for mummification.
As if it were something like a secret, when it clearly is not, the guides of the Monastery Palace of El Escorial They usually give a mysterious tone to their voice when mentioning that there is a room adjacent to the Pantheon of the Kings, with a granite floor and a vaulted ceiling, which serves as a rotten place and which currently remains occupied by the mortal remains of several Infants. and by the Counts of Barcelona.
The El Escorial rotting room, with two different rooms, one for Kings and the other for Infants, is located in the basement of the basilica, a few meters from the place of the royal tombs. The Augustinian monks, who replaced the Order of the Jeromes of the period of Philip II since 1885, are in charge of guarding three small rooms without light whose passage is limited only to them. Although there is no stipulated time for the biological process of natural reduction of the body to complete, it is estimated that between 25 and 40 years are necessary for “the humidity” and bad odor to be eliminated from the body. The final function of the putrider, in any case, is to reduce the size of the bodies so that they adapt to the tiny lead chests that, in the case of the Kings, occupy just one meter long and 40 centimeters wide.
«The doors that are on the second landing of the stairs lead to the rotters, whose use I will explain to dispel the many lies that are told about them. They are three rooms like bedrooms, without any light or ventilation. After they are concluded The Officials and formalities of delivery of the Royal corpse that is to remain in one of the pantheons, the prior, accompanied by some elderly monks, goes down to the pantheon where the corpse has been left, taking with him the bricklayers and some other servants. These take out the sealed lead box that contains the corpse from the detisú or velvet that covers it, and take it to the rotten place. While the masons tear down the partition, the others open four or more holes in the lead box, place it inside the room or alcove on four wooden wedges that hold it about two or three inches off the ground, and at the same time the masons They re-form the double partition that they demolished. The corpses remain there for 30 or 40 or more years until the humidity is consumed and when they no longer give off a bad smell, they are transferred to the respective pantheon,” he says with surgical precision. Brother José de Quevedolibrarian of the monastery, in the book ‘History of the Royal Monastery of San Lorenzo del Escorial’.
General view of the altar and the Pantheon of Kings of the monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial. abc
Currently, the Pudridero de los Infantes keeps the bodies of Don Luis Alfonso de Baviera y Borbón – grandson of Alfonso XII– and Doña Isabel Alfonsa de Borbón y Borbón –also granddaughter of Alfonso XII–. Don Jaime de Borbón is no longer there – the second of the sons of the King Alfonso XIII–, who was the last to leave the Pudridero de los Infantes to occupy his permanent tomb among the white marbles of the Pantheon of the Infantes, the place destined for Princes, Infants and Queens who were not mothers of Kings. There are still 23 empty graves there.
This transfer of the Infants and Kings from the rotten place to the Pantheon is celebrated in privacy and under a very strict protocol. In attendance are a member of the Augustinian community, another from National Heritage, an architect – who is in charge of directing the dismantling of the wall of the Royal Pantheon –, two workers and a doctor, who limits himself to testifying that the decomposition process has ended.
For its part, the Pudridero Real is today occupied by the parents of Don Juan Carlos: Don Juan de Borbón and Doña María de las Mercedes, who have rested in the Monastery since April 1993 and January 2000, respectively. Once the bodies of the Counts of Barcelona are transferred to their tombs, the Pantheon of Kings will be complete, unless an extension is made.
This transfer of the Infants and Kings from the rotten place to the Pantheon is celebrated in privacy and under a very strict protocol.
With the exception of Philip V, who was buried in the Collegiate Church of the Royal Site of La Granja de San Ildefonso along with his second wife, his son Ferdinand VI, who was buried according to his wish with his wife Barbara of Braganza in the convent of the Salesas Reales, as well as the other people Joseph I Bonaparte and Amadeo of Savoy, all the Kings in history of Spain since 1558 remain buried in El Escorial.
A mistake by Philip II or one by Philip IV?
The date on which the rotting pit was opened is difficult to specify, but it was certainly not during the reign of Philip II, but with the creation of the Royal Pantheon, inaugurated in 1654, with Philip IV on the throne. Thus, the Eighth Wonder of the World Built by Philip II, ironically, it would have failed miserably in its main purpose as the tomb of the Kings, since the one known as “the hells” (the tomb where the bodies were buried at the beginning) was narrow and gloomy. Or at least that’s what his grandson, Felipe IV, thought. In a letter sent by Philip IV to the prior Fray Nicolás of Madrid, arranging the transfer of the bodies to the new pantheon, the King explains why he believed that his grandfather had made such a mistake: «As the intention of the King was my lord, and my grandfather, when he built this Royal House, he wanted his son to be there. Sepultura, that of his glorious Ancestors, and that of his Successors; but he did not leave a competent place designated for this.
The Royal Crypt built to solve the apparent neglect of Philip II was built by Juan Gómez de Morathe architect of the Plaza Mayor of Madrid, and consists of 26 marble tombs arranged in seven columns on both sides of the altar, which were occupied by the ancestors of Philip IV. However, now that an expansion of the Pantheon is necessary more than ever, some authors have questioned whether Philip IV’s decision to move the bodies was the most correct. The main chronicler of the time, Father Sigüenza, tells how Philip II did specify the place, because he wanted to “make an ancient cemetery where the royal bodies would be buried and where services and masses and vigils would be held for them, as in the “In the early Church they used to make martyrs.” The architect Juan Rafael de la Cuadra Blanco, which extensively addressed the issue in an ABC Open Tribune on October 29, 1998, defends that «Charles I made it clear in his will that he wanted to be half his body under the altar and half under the priest’s feet. And his son, Philip II, fulfilled his wish.
If Philip II were returned, Charles I and their wives, the Queens Anne of Austria and Isabel, her primitive burial would be corrected, according to the defenders of this theory, “a historical error, and four tombs would be left free to bury two more generations.” That original place where Felipe II wanted to bury his parents, his aunts, three of his wives and his son Don Carlos was a small vault under the altar and under the praying statues of the presbytery, and slightly above the Pantheon of Kings, the “Hells” mentioned.
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