Friends with an Old Book Task 2 – Argument
My book is called „Descripcion del Real Monasterio de San Lorenzo de el Escorial; su magnifico templo, pantheon y palacio“, which stands for „Description of the Royal Monastery of San Lorenzo de el Escorial; its magnificent temple, pantheon and palace“ from Spanish.
I was curious and googled the name of the building to find out, why it was so important to write a whole book about it. Internet claims: El Escorial or the Royal Monument of San Lorenzo de El Escorial is a historical summary in honor of the King of Spain, in the city of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, about 45 kilometers northwest of the Spanish capital, Madrid. It is one of the Spanish royal monuments and functions as a monastery, basilica, royal palace, pantheon, library, museum, university, school and hospital.
On the first page the book states to be dedicated to the king Don Carlos Tercero (Charles III of Spain) — makes sense! The author of this book, Andrés Ximénez, was a Spanish hieronymite (member of Order of St. Jeronimo) friar and also a professor at the same Royal Monastery of El Escorial. It is no wonder, that description of this monastery was an actual and important topic for him. Also all the paintings were made by his hand. In the beginning of every chapter the first letter of the paragraph is always styled with small drawings — I absolutely adore that. The end of the chapter is also marked with a small ornament.
The book is about 30cm long and contains of 452 pages — pretty thick book! But does not have a list of contents (or at least the one I could detect, my Spanish is not that strong). I assume that the book covers all the parts of the monastery step by step. In additional materials oil the end of the book there are ground planes of the building, and they seem to be huge and complicated, consisting of numerous small details and constructions.
To recap, it is definitely not an easy read, it is more of a gigantic work for the needs of historians.
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