Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
"In 1559 Philip II returned to Spain from the Netherlands, never to leave again. Two years later he decided to base his court at Madrid, in the very center of the Iberian peninsula. . . . One day, while on a hunting trip, Philip discovered, about 25 miles (40 km) north of Madrid, the site for the greatest memorial of his reign, the monastery-palace of the Escorial. This huge complex of buildings took twenty years to complete, from 1563 to 1584, and included rooms to house Philip's vast collections of books, manuscripts, and holy relics, as well as a mausoleum for the kings of Spain, beginning with Charles V." [Furtado: 1001 Days]