Before I started my search with Alice, I wanted to understand how this website works. I realized that there are 3 lines where keywords can be typed in – a topic of conversation, Alice’s brain and what the search should be about.
There are two main terms that I instantly think about when it comes to this book: monastery and Carlos III., King of Spain. Firstly, the whole book is about the royal monastery of San Lorenzo, El Real Monasterio de San Lorenzo de el Escorial. Secondly, the book is dedicated to the King of Spain, Carlos III.
At first I wanted to focus on the topic of the monastery. I searched up “spanish monastery” under the topic of “monastery”. The first few books weren’t about monasteries in Spain but about monasteries in Italy, Turkey, Great Britain and so on. Therefore, I changed my search entry to the more general theme “monastery is”. The book “The Immaculate Conception in Spanish Art” catched my eye as it contains a chapter where Spanish monasteries are mentioned. So I looked it up to know a bit more about the content. This book is about the iconographic form of one of the most crucial doctrines of the Catholic Church. In the background of a historical debate between the Dominicans and the Franciscans, the author Suzanne Stratton explains the importance of the Immaculate Conception to the Spanish Kings.
This brings me to my next search about Carlos III., the King of Spain to whom the book is dedicated to, under the topic of conversation “king”. I tried a few themes, such as “Don Carlos Tercero”, “Charles third of Spain”, “Carlos third of Spain” and a few more. None of them gave me results that had to do with the actual person. Therefore, I changed the topic to “spain” and modified my search to “Don Carlos III”. Under these conditions, I found a book about the father of Carlos III., Phillip V., where Carlos III. also played a momentous role.
To conclude, working with Ask Alice can be difficult to come to a result. It is not easy to find what one is searching for, if the right keywords are missing. After quite a lot of time investment, a few results can be found.