Hall of Battles

It is a gallery that is 60 by 6 meters long and 8 meters high that is situated near the royal residences. Its walls are covered in murals that show victories of the Spanish armed forces. The battle of La Higueruela, in which the Castilian army overcame the Moors of Granada in Sierra Elvira (1431)), is continually painted on the south wall, only being broken up by two doors. The north wall, in contrast, has nine windows that divide it into nine places where nine episodes from the conflict with France (1557–1588) were painted, with a focus on the battle of San Quintin, which is connected to the monastery's founding. Finally, two scenes from one of the Spanish army's most recent wins, the battle of Terceira Island between the Spanish army under Lvaro de Bazán and the French army, were shown at the ends (1582-1583). Niccol Granello, his half-brother Fabrizio Castello, Lazzaro Tavarone, and Orazio Cambiaso were the painters; they soon fled. The grotesques of the vault were the first to be painted; the painters were paid in January 1585, and the work was finished six months later.

A contract to paint the battle of La Higueruela was made in January 1587, but it wasn't finished until September 1589. Father Sigüenza explains that this fight from the War of Granada was picked because the King of Segovia had been pleased with a grisaille painting of the same battle on a 130-foot-long canvas that had been discovered in an ancient chest in the Alcázar of Segovia and had it replicated.

A fresh agreement with Castello, Granello, and Tavarone was signed in February 1590, a few months after the battle of La Higueruela painting was finished, to finish the hall's ornamentation. The only engagements Philip II personally participated in were those in the war with the French in 1557 and 1558, and the conquest of Tercera Island in the Azores, which completed the merger of Portugal into the Spanish throne. Rodrigo de Holanda, Antonio de las Vias's son-in-law, gave the painters replicas of the squadrons' organizational structure and uniforms to assure historical accuracy.

The architect José de Lema's iron barrier for the frescoes was put in place in 1890.

Article obtained from Wikipedia article Wikipedia in his version of 2/12/2022, by various authors under the license Licencia de Documentación Libre GNU.