The Escorial as the “eighth Wonder of the world”. A lexical-terminological research of “wonder”/the “wonderful” in the Brief description of Father Santos (1657)

The idea of the Royal Monastery of The Escorial as the “eighth Wonder of the world” (and superior than the remaining seven) constitutes one of the literary topics that has given the monument the most fame since its dawn, at the end of the 16th Century. Because it survival nowadays, a monographic lexical-terminological research of the word “wonder”/the “wonderful” is proposed in one of the texts describing the Monastery that made the most use of it (thus demonstrated after previous comparative studies with other descriptions): the Brief description of the Hieronymite friar Francisco de los Santos (1657). Therefore, the present investigation, based on Digital Humanities methodology, sheds light on the meaning of the concept in this testimony, paradigmatic of the essence of the “wonder” of Escurial.