The Library of the Monastery of El Escorial according to some Eighteenth-Century French Travellers

This study is based on a corpus of texts by Vayrac, Saint-Simon, Silhouette, Beaumarchais, Peyron, Bourgoing, and Marcillac, which were published after their visit to Spain, and it analyses how these authors view and describe the Royal Laurentian Library of the monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial. These Age of Enlightenment authors tackle a wide range of aspects, such as the layout and decoration of the space, the features of the collection, or the attitude of the monks in charge of the works. While the travellers' level of detail and rigour with regard to the library of El Escorial may vary, their accounts are nevertheless equally interesting since they reveal the different perspectives that they wish to convey to their contemporaries.