First, I started my research on the Xenotheka platform and just typed in the title of my book: Instrumente zur Architektur. But since the search result was zero, I switched to the Alice website. There I typed in again the title of my book and there the search result was so big I didn’t even know where to start and if these were topics I could use for this task. I had problems with navigating on the website and got a little bit frustrated. So, I rewatched the lecture where Miro introduced us to Alice’s Brain.
I continued with my research by typing in different titles (this time in English) such as “instrument of architecture”, “the five orders”, “instrument for the five orders” and so on. But the result was not very satisfying. I also tried to use different brains and settings for my research. I continued with “proportion instrument” and found one book that also discussed a primary instrument of measure and proportion. This theme came closest to the theme of my book, although it is about sculptors and not the five columns. In the book Past Present – Essay on Historicism in Art from Donatello to Picasso Irving Lavin explores the art from the Renaissance to modern times. Furthermore, he talks about an instrument named the “bowed compass”. This is the reason why I have chosen this book.
The second book I found has the title The companions to the history of architecture – Volume II, Eighteenth-Century Architecture by Harry Francise Mallgrave. Although my book “Instrument zur Architektur” by Andreas Albrecht was written during the 17th century, both books discuss the topic of proportion and instruments to modify the five columns in the wright proportion. I chose this book because of the little paragraph mentioned on the Alice’s Website where following sentences were written: “Stuart investigated the needle’s precise function as a scientific instrument.” Here the instrument is mentioned as a scientific one, while in Albrecht’s book he talks about a mechanical one. “Instruments makers circulated sales catalogues and promoted their inventions through scientific publications.” This sentence shows that the architectural instruments become more and more important, and everyone is inventing a new one at that time. Therefore, Andreas Albrecht already discussed a very important subject.
Finally, I had quite a lot of difficulties in finding two books that could be connected to my book. I think the reason for this is, that my book is written in old German, and you must search in English. In addition, my book does not discuss a lot of themes, so it is difficult to search for different keywords that could lead to the same topic. Besides, I already had trouble with the last task to find out what exactly Andreas Albrecht deals within his book.