Architecture
Focus in the
following will be on the central matter of this whole work: that
Islamic influences on Western architecture are obvious, and make
historical sense; however, any time modern Western historians
suppress such an influence, and offer other explanations for
such changes, a number of causes and origins become the
foundation for such changes. Seen in isolation from each other,
such explanations can look fairly unchallengeable as their
authors have enough specialised knowledge of their subject to
drown the argument in infinite detail, and to refer to each
other to assert scholarly legitimacy. When, however, all changes
are put together, two major findings are made:
First, the tens of causes for such changes as given by such
historians are conflicting with each other, and are also
historically untenable. Secondly, all such changes, especially
once facts suppressed (by mainstream Western historians) are
re-established, show exactly the same patterns observed already
with regard to other subjects repeating themselves. Hence, in
the case here, changes in architecture and construction that
took place in the West, in any place, and at any time during the
Middle Ages, show the same substance (Islamic
forms/models/techniques), timing (precisely following contact
with Islam,) agents (Muslim masons), geography (in close
vicinity to Islam), etc.
In
the following, first is raised, albeit briefly, the matter of
historical inconsistency once the Islamic role is suppressed,
and then is looked in greater detail at the Islamic impact,
which replicates the same patterns of influence already observed
for all other changes.
a. Raising Issue with the Denial of Islamic Influence:
Even the largest
buildings of Carolingian times, such as the Palace and Chapel of
Charlemagne at Aachen (792-805), Harvey observes, had roofs of
relatively small span.[1]
No outstanding competence in the designing of centring or
scaffolding was called for, the details of architectural design
were either closely copied from Roman or Byzantine work or were
extremely crude.[2]Churches,
together with imperial palaces were the other major buildings
standing, and churches in the early Middle Ages were roofed with
wood, which was ill suited to a troubled epoch, with the ever
present risk of fire, and also the problem of wood scarcity.[3]Problems
of roof construction dominated the development of architecture.[4]
It is unlikely that before 1000 there was a single stone
building in the whole duchy of Normandy beyond a few
unimpressive fortresses.[5]
Defences and castles were wooden structures, and patched with
rudimentary mortars; no castle prior to the 12th
century is preserved to our day.
Fairly dramatic
changes in Western construction suddenly began in the 11th
century. The beginning of a new competence in design on a much
larger scale can be seen, most particularly with Santiago de
Compostela (northern Spain) begun about l075, and the new church
of the monastery of Cluny started I088 and finished in 1121.[6]
In secular buildings the capacity to build on notable scale is
most particularly obvious with the great hall of William Rufus
at Westminster, built in I097-99 and measuring 238 by 68 feet
the largest room in Europe for well over a century.[7]
This sudden
upsurge without previous local antecedents drives Harvey to
conclude that the new energy infused into Western art came from
outside the area of north Western Europe.[8]
Byzantium
is the source for such
revolution mainstream Western history answers, K. J Conant, one
amongst such many historians holding such view.[9]Yet
this is a misconception, whose sources are partly raised by
Briggs:
`that it may be that the Church has fostered for centuries a
belief that our
`Romanesque' and Gothic buildings rose from the ashes of
imperial Rome, or that pedantic humanists of the Renaissance
are to blame for our
misconceptions.’[10]
Misconceptions, which can be partly challenged on the usual
ground: why is it that such an impact did not happen earlier,
closer to Byzantium
, or
within Byzantium itself?
The Byzantine argument
with regard to architectural developments is untenable on other
grounds:
First, medieval
architecture was a major advance on Roman building techniques.[11]The
new techniques conflict with what is found in Byzantium
,
where the arch, one of the substantial innovations in medieval
Western Christian architecture, often remained what it had been
in the Roman Empire, a concretion held together by mortar.[12]
Second, Byzantium
,
itself, gradually derived its skills from Islam; Theophilus,
according to Bury, was stimulated in his building enterprises by
what he had heard of `the splendour of the palaces of Baghdad
.’[13]Oriental
influences on Byzantium continued to operate throughout the
Abbasid period, and were `one of the ingredients of Byzantine
civilisation
.’[14]
Third, it was
Byzantium
which, in 1064,
benefited from the largest intake of Muslim craftsmen following
the taking of Barbastro by the Franco-Norman army, whose
`cultural booty’ included 7000 men sent to Byzantium.[15]
Why should superior Byzantium need such craftsmen if it exported
skills rather than imported them?
Fourth, even
places that ought to be influenced by Byzantium
due to their proximity
to it more than to Islam, exhibited the Islamic impact. Whether
during the Romanesque, Gothic and even Renaissance
Italy, Grabar explains,
it was the Islamic influence, which certainly played a part in
developing certain architectural motifs there.[16]
The bichromy of masonry in churches in Siena and in Pisa
,
the towers of San Gimignano and the complex surfaces of official
and secular monuments in Venice
(even some details in
San Marco), Grabar notes, are just a few examples of tastes and
techniques derived from the Muslim world.[17]
Islamic influences are also recurrent, even if harder to
extract, in the Russian art of the Middle Ages and even in the
pre-Petrine Kremlin, where ltalianate and Oriental motifs are
often inter-mixed with local traditions.[18]
Fifth, the places that witnessed the earliest and most dramatic
changes in Western Christendom are precisely the places that
experienced other earliest changes, such as in arts, as to be
seen further on, and they were the ones nearest to Islam, or in
contact in one way or another with Islam: northern Spain,
southern France, churches of the order of Cluny…[19]
and these places are the furthest geographically and culturally
from Byzantium.
Whilst the Byzantine source does not make historical sense, the
Islamic source is much easier to establish. It jumps to the
attention, for the same patterns observed before with regard to
every other subject come into play again and again.
b. Matters of Impact:
Looking at the Romanesque style shows, and precisely, that its
evolution in Western Christendom
coincides with the time
of contacts with Islam; it bears the same substance and forms;
and it also takes place precisely in the closest geographical
parts to the Islamic land, and precisely alongside the
pilgrimage routes towards Spain. Staying with the last point,
first, it seems fairly clear, Grabar explains, and it makes
historical sense that, as the great pilgrimage routes of the
Romanesque period were established, contact with Spain became
the norm for many actual or potential patrons and taste-makers
in Romanesque Europe.[20]
Themes and motifs were carried from south to north, the Islamic
Andalusian
influences obvious to
various degrees in the Rousillon, Languedoc, Poitou, Auvergne,
most particularly, and occasionally found in Burgundy or the
Provence
.[21]
These consist of architectural details, horseshoe arches,
polylobes, masonry of stones of alternating colours, roll
corbels, impost blocks, certain kinds of vegetal ornament, and a
tendency in some monuments to cover entire surfaces with
ornament.[22]
Lambert, too, insists that Romanesque architecture of South West
France, the old Aquitaine, show intricate resemblances with
those of North and North West Spain, including the multi-lobed
arch seen in a crowd of churches such as that of Saintonge and
of l’Angoumois, at Echebrune, at Rioux, at Thouars, Chalais,
Montmoreau, Plassac, Mouthiers and many more.[23]And
playing a leading part in the changes was a group of Christians
living amongst the Muslims, the Mozarabs, whose contribution
became highly visible in the erection of churches in northern
Spain at the end of the 10th century, and the
beginning of the 11th.[24]
In the
subsequent Gothic period (post 12th century), again,
changes are strictly linked to Islamic influence, Wren, for
instance, wrote:
`This we now call Gothic manner of architecture... tho' the
Goths were rather destroyers than builders I think it should
with more reason be called Saracen style.'[25]
The
Islamic source is substantiated by the fact that we find, again,
the same patterns of influence seen in previous chapters, three
main ones dominating in this instance: such changes bearing the
same Islamic substance; the timing of such sudden construction
skills appearing in Western Christendom,
precisely following the
return of the first crusaders from the East; and also, once
more, involving craftsmen of Islamic origin. These three
elements are seen in turn, focus here placed on the second,
timing.
It
is from Islam, indeed, that Western architects acquired the
pointed arch, which was to become the symbol and chief mark of
gothic style.[26]
Sarton
points out, that the
term `ogival architecture' referring to one of its most striking
characteristics, the use of pointed arches- is somewhat
misleading, because Gothic architects did not invent the pointed
arches, nor the ribbed vaulting used for many centuries before
by the Muslims.[27]
It
is generally agreed that Western Christian Gothic was born in
the 12th century.[28]
The appearance of the ribbed cross vault, an Eastern
invention, is seen at Durham cathedral for the first time in the
West; and it is a very strange coincidence if indeed, Harvey
notes, if it be a coincidence at all, that the first known
ribbed vault in the West (1104) should have been built within
the five years that succeeded the taking of Jerusalem (1099).[29]
It can hardly be a coincidence that the great campaign
known as the First Crusade had just taken place, and there is no
doubt, as a result of the experience gained on the Crusades
and especially through
interrogating local craftsmen that many skills were acquired.[30]
In the East, the Crusaders and their followers were, indeed,
exposed to new ideas, which had had an important influence on
them.[31]
Of particular interest were the style and construction methods
employed by the Seljuk Turks (who were the main crusaders’
foes), such as after the earthquake in 1114 the bridge at Misis
was likely to have been repaired using pointed arches to replace
the rounded ones of an earlier bridge constructed in the time of
Justinian.[32]
It was in Anatolia (the Seljuk heartland) that skilful masons
were using techniques that were subsequently employed by the
Crusaders in their own buildings.[33]The
new arches were similar to those of the bridge at Dyar al-Bakr
across the Tigris, near to a mosque where the Seljuk Turks (in
1117-25) used arches of the type soon to be familiar in the
West.[34]
Coincidently, as Cochrane
notes, Queen Matilda commissioned the first stone-built
bridge in England
, at
Stratford-le-Bow, before 1117, and that it was of a type never
before seen in England.[35]
Within a few years of 1100, fine masonry had reached England;
not only were the stones better cut, but they were of larger
size, implying the existence of improved cranes and hoists, and
the mortar joints were now very fine, so that a chronicler
commented upon Bishop Roger's buildings at Old Sarum, begun in
1102, that the stones were so accurately set that the joints
were not seen and the whole work might be thought to be cut out
of a single rock.[36]Schnyder
also says, that as we are able to trace the decisive renewal in
brick architecture to the period shortly after the first great
crusades to the East, it would appear correct to assume that
`the impulse which led to the rapid development of brick
architecture in Europe came from the East.’[37]
`Coincidentally,’ with this development, improvements in forming
and firing were also introduced.[38]
It
is supposed that returning Frankish engineers from 1099 onwards
might have returned equipped with fresh knowledge of structural
expedients, and that, again, a proportion of Eastern prisoners
of outstanding capacity were brought back to the West, at least
one such prisoner, 'Lalys' built Neath Abbey and is said to have
been architect to Henry I.[39]
Also, it must be added, amongst the armies that the Occident
sent for centuries to the Orient
were also to be found
workers of all sorts, arm craftsmen, architects, and builders,
whose sojourn in Syria
was long enough for them
to acquire the knowledge they needed.[40]
Evolving on
precisely the same lines, and betraying the same patterns of
influence are Western castle fortifications, taking place not
centuries before, but perfectly coinciding with the returning
crusaders. Philip
of Alsace, count of Flanders, completed the castle of Ghent on
his return from an expedition to Palestine (1176-8), and
modelled it on the fortress of Toron (between Tyre and Acre);
and Richard Coeur de Lion, when he built the Chateau Gaillard
after the Third Crusade, took his inspiration from the Krak des
Chevaliers.[41]
In Syria
and Palestine the
military orders learnt to build much stronger and more elaborate
castles.[42]
Briggs amply demonstrates how contact of East and West
during the Crusades
(and during the later
Middle Ages) contributed influences on castle architecture.[43]The
Crusaders found excellent military architecture at Aleppo,
Baallbek, and elsewhere in the Islamic East, learned there the
uses of machicolated walls, and took from their foes many an
idea for their castles and forts.[44]
In these, the main fortifications were enclosed by a series of
circular walls, all set with turrets, rounded to prevent mining
at the angles and arranged with lines of fire that allowed each
of them to protect others from enemy assault.[45]
Heavy machinery appears on the Western Christian sites, and also
precisely, following the return of the first crusaders from the
East; 1100 highly suggestive of the direct importation of Muslim
machinery brought back by returning crusaders from their
victorious campaign.[46]
Which somehow explains that in the opening years of the 12th
Century, the period was characterised by a new ability to
produce really fine worked ashlar; the use of larger stones
implying better cranes and hoists, and by the evident self
reliance of industrial masters.[47]
The Palatine Abbey of Durham, Winchester new cathedral of St
Sivithum, and the gigantic church and monastery as that of Bury
St Edmunds well exemplify the new ability to think and build
big.[48]
These new techniques contrast markedly with those of 20-30 years
before in the Christian West
,
where nothing happened for centuries before; now, out of
nowhere, a sudden revolution, which could be seen throughout
Western Europe, bearing all the marks of external impact, and
not the result of slow evolution in traditional skills.[49]There
can be no mere coincidence in the fact that exactly such skills
had existed among the stonemasons of the Near East for centuries
and that at this very date the great campaign known as the first
crusade had just taken place.[50]And
once more, it ought to be reminded, that in some cases,
following the crusades, the workmen accompanied their new
masters when they returned to Europe.[51]
If
we linger with fortifications, and change time and place, we
find again the same patterns of Islamic influence at work; focus
in this instance on substance, and agents of transmission who
are the same as with all other changes, i.e Muslim craftsmen, or
Christian craftsmen living amongst Muslims (Spanish
Mozarabs in this case).
In
10th century Muslim Spain, the
art of fortification at the Castle of Gormaz, shows skills
unequalled elsewhere in Western Europe.[52]Similar
skills in military architecture also seen at Tarifa, de Banos de
la Encina, and even in the 9th century at the
Alcazaba de Merida, through stone masonry, construction design,
etc.[53]
Sobriety of architectural lines, rational use of space, reaching
for the highest standards make this defence architecture, in the
words of Levi Provencal, eloquent proof of both the military
powers of the Muslims, and the considerable means which could be
mustered to erect strategic ensembles of the sort.[54]The
Alcazar at Seville
and the Alhambra at
Grenada were fortresses and palaces combined.[55]
The Islamic substance of impact can also be traced to the
vocabulary, the abundance of Arabic terms which relate to the
various parts constituting a castle, and found in the Castilian
Middle Ages: adarve, acitara, atalaya, etc, for parts of the
castle such as: the front wall, the tower, external tower etc.
[56]
The early, and
possibly earliest Christian West
ern
fortresses on the Islamic Spanish
model were the work of
artisans certainly prominent among Mozarab immigrants in León.
The defences of 10th century Zamora were built by
masons (alarifes), presumably Mozarabs, from Toledo
.[57]
When Alfonso VI of Castile (1073-l108) captured Segovia from the
Muslims he built there a castle-fortress on the plan of the
Alcazar of Toledo.[58]Centuries
forwards, in the same country,
Muslim masons were employed in Christian buildings as
bricklayers or carpenters, and the majority of the building
force is likely to have been of Muslim origin, or trained by
those with experience of Muslim architecture.[59]
The Muslim master mason who built the castle of Alandroal for
the military order of Avis in 1298 left an inscription
testifying his achievement.[60]In
1368, Charles le Mauvais (the bad) of Navarre granted to the
Mudejares of Toledo a remission of half their taxes for three
years for their assistance during his wars, especially in
fortification and engineering, which, again, shows that the
conquering race depended on Muslims for the higher branches of
applied knowledge.[61]
Staying with
Muslim masons, we find that throughout the medieval period, they
played the central role in the erection of many structures and
edifices, and changes in construction techniques took place
precisely after the arrival or acquisition of such masons. Thus,
following the taking of Barbastro (1063-4), several thousand
Muslim prisoners were sent to France, 1500 to Rome and those to
Constantinople already mentioned; among these presumably was the
Muslim corps of engineers which had defended Barbastro.[62]Such
craftsmen possessed a degree of technical skill unknown north of
the Alps and the Pyrenees.[63]
This and the Norman conquest of Muslim Sicily
(1060-1091) were
decisive factors in the rise of the new architecture, which
coincides exactly with such events.[64]The
change that took place in England
(cited above) also
follow exactly the Norman line. In Sicily itself, the Capella
Palatina was built in 1132, the church of the Martorana in 1136,
La Ziza in 1154, and La Cuba in 1180, all show strong Islamic
influence, abounding in pure Islamic features.[65]
Muslims, as already lengthily explained in previous chapters,
had remained on the island until the late 13th
century, and were appreciated for their skills and know how.
Nothing obscures the fact that movement of craftsmen and
builders could have taken place between Sicily and other parts
of the Norman realm as seen with respect to other aspects. Such
contacts between Normans and `Saracens’ help explain the
ambitious architectural programme which became manifest in
northern France and in England, concludes Harvey.[66]
It is also said by Dulaure, in his Histoire de Paris, that
Muslim architects assisted in the construction of Notre Dame.[67]
After the capture of Cordova (1236) by the Castilians, Muslim
masons and carpenters were compelled to work for a specified
period every year on sacred structures and in return were
exempted from paying taxes.[68]
The new churches retained such features as cupolas, decorations
of intersecting arcades, or techniques like polychrome brick
patterning.[69]
Construction was, indeed, and largely in Mujedar (Muslims
under Christian rule) hands; the legacy of Mujedar architecture,
and also a boast of Aragonese towns today, remnants of major
tourist attraction.[70]
Later on, architects from Grenada were employed by Castilian
monarchs in the construction of palaces, and even by orthodox
prelates in the ornamentation of cathedrals.[71]Muslims
assisted in the construction of some of `the noblest piles of
the Peninsula,’ Scott puts it; the walls of great monasteries,
the windows of lofty spires, exhibiting the engrailed and
horseshoe arches of the Muslim.[72]
Islamic skill in the chiselling of the intricate designs which
cover the fronts of `magnificent’ cathedrals; a chapel in the
grand metropolitan church of Toledo
, the seat of the primate of Spain, dating from the 13th
century, is a beautiful specimen of such art.[73]
An
interesting instance dating from the 14th century
needs mentioning here. One of the last French strongholds in
Gascony to yield to the English during the early years of the
war (mid 14th century) was la Reole. The townsmen offered to
surrender. The English accepted these terms of surrender, but
the commander of the castle, Sir Agos de bans, preferred to
retire into the castle with his soldiers, where `great
quantities of wine and other provisions' would enable them to
continue the struggle. The English then moved against the castle
and
`erected all their machines against it; but they did little
mischief, for the castle was very high, and built of a hard
stone. It was erected a long time since by the Saracens, who
laid the foundations so strong, and with such curious
workmanship, that the buildings of our time cannot be compared
to it. When the earl found his machines had no effect, he
commanded them to desist; and as he was not without miners in
his army, he ordered them to undermine the ditches of the
castle, so that they might pass under. This was not, however,
soon done.’[74]
As with other changes,
pilgrimage and trade had their impact on construction skills,
too, and again, the same patterns observed elsewhere, remarkably
reproducing themselves with great ease.
9th century Islamic impact can be seen at the
church of Germigny des Pres, via many Muslim features, possibly
an outcome of early contacts, via pilgrims to Spain.[75]
The cathedrals of the Midi were situated upon routes followed by
thousands of pilgrims and borrowed architectural motifs from the
mosques of the Peninsula.[76]
The same Muslim skills, obvious in Spain, are found in many of
the finest ecclesiastical edifices in France: the churches of
Maguelonne, in the Cathedral du Puy, and in the ancient abbeys
of Provence
and Languedoc.[77]
It seems fairly clear and makes historical sense, Grabar
explains, that as the great pilgrimage routes of the Romanesque
period were established, contact with Spain affected change in
Romanesque Europe.[78]
Cairo
,
whose influence on Italian cities extends to the striped facades
of marble buildings in Pisa
,
Genoa
,
Siena, Florence, and other Italian cities, is a good example of
how trading links with the East during the Middle Ages impacted.[79]It
is very likely that merchants and travellers returned with
memories of Islamic lands rather than workers and, as a result,
one encounters the small consistent detail.[80]
Staying with the role of
pilgrims, and looking at a specific development in Western
construction, the so-called Perpendicular style, highlights
precisely the same patterns once more. The so-called
perpendicular style must be regarded as a specifically new
creation, produced about 1330 by William Ramsey, who was a
master mason from a Norwich family who was in time to be the
king's chief mason south of Trent, from 1336 until he died in
London during the Black Death of 1349.[81]
The Perpendicular made its first appearance in or very soon
after 1330, a new style attributed by Western historians to the
lack of skil1s subsequent to the Black Death of 1348-49, when so
many of the older generation of artists died.[82]This
is historically untenable, for this style had appeared fifteen
years before the pestilence even began, signs of such style
seen first in works with which William Ramsey was
associated, the south cloister of Norwich Cathedral designed
about 1324, and the new cloister and chapter-house for St Paul's
Cathedral in London begun by him in 1332.[83]
Inspiration comes not from the Black Death as historians
generally put it, but from the Islamic East. Something very
closely akin to the earliest 'squeezed hexagons' of
Perpendicular tracery, Harvey says, is found in Muslim buildings
in Egypt
dating from the early
13th to the early I4th century.[84]
Associated with other features of Perpendicular character, such
as vertical members running up to cut the curve of an arch,
these forms are found in Cairo
in the Mausoleum of
Mustafa Pasha (1269-73).[85]
How
did this style come to England
? As
with other changes, the pilgrim route is the answer. Pilgrims,
including artists, were visiting Egypt within the relevant
period is shown by the itinerary of Simon Simeon and Hugh the
Illuminator, Franciscans from Ireland who went to the Holy Land
in 1323.[86]
They went through Egypt; in Alexandria, for instance, Simon
noted that `Saracens, Christians, Greeks, Schismatic (Copts) and
`perfidious Jews
'
dress all much alike.[87]
It is not without interest, that the unique manuscript of this
narrative first belonged to Simon Bozoun, prior of Norwich in
1344-1352, and though such a travel-book could not itself have
influenced the course of art, as Harvey insists, it may be
significant that documents of this kind were collected at major
cathedral monasteries like Norwich.[88]
The English Perpendicular style was only adopted in few
buildings designed by English architects in Scotland, Ireland
and Calais[89],
which proves that the skills were external, and not from within
Western Christendom
,
for had the latter been the case, independent, unrelated
manifestations of such style (as of others,) could have been
seen in other centuries, in other places, and detached from any
Islamic source, or point of contact.
Looking at
the matter of Islamic impact from another angle, that of
translations, will yield similar conclusions. In the same way
sciences advanced thanks to the translation effort, construction
techniques did the same, relying on the new mathematics. Scott
notes how the great importance attached by the Muslims to
mathematics was unrivalled at the time.[90]
There is, indeed, a considerable body of mathematics, much of it
Islamic deployed in design and architecture of both Spain and
Portugal
.[91]
Ozdural notes how mathematicians, who taught practical geometry
to artisans, played a decisive role in the creation of patterns
in Islamic art, and also in designing buildings.[92]
Mathematicians gave instructions and advice on the application
of geometry to architectural construction.[93]The
mathematical input is obvious for instance, in the proportioning
of the arches; a simple method of establishing a commensurate
system of proportions throughout a building was well known; and
the system had the advantage of deriving its ratios from the
perfect square, a favoured shape in Islamic buildings century
after century.[94]The
passage of Islamic mathematics to the Christian West
has already been well
looked at. Just as Islamic mathematics impacted on commerce, it
impacted, and with other sciences, on construction techniques,
opening a vast array of possibilities, as here outlined by
Lacroix:
`As a proof of the
forward state of the exact sciences in the Middle Ages, it would
be sufficient to instance a Roman basilica or a Gothic
cathedral. What immensity and depth of mathematical
calculations; what knowledge of geometry, statics, and optics;
what experience and skill in execution must have been possessed
by the architects and builders in hewing, carving, and fitting
the stones, in raising them to great heights, in constructing
enormous towers and gigantic belfries, in forming the many
arches, some heavy and massive, others light and airy, in
combining and neutralising the thrust of these arches which
interlace and hide each other up to the very summit of the
edifice-all as if the most complicated science had humbly made
herself the servant of art, placing no obstacle in the way of
its free development!’[95]
The
best evidence of Islamic impact is its enduring character on the
architecture of Western Christendom
for centuries after the
medieval era. One of the earliest proponents of the Islamic
origin of many Western architectural innovations was of course
Sir Christopher Wren (1632-1723), who had commented that Gothic
should be called `Saracenic’.[96]
Wren was himself influenced by the Islamic style, Sweetman
telling how the Royal Society for Natural Philosophy of London,
formed in 1661, came to include amongst its members (from 1682)
the eminent traveller and expert on Islamic matters, Sir John
Chardin, and Sir Christopher Wren (possessor of one of the most
gifted and questioning minds of the age,) who had interesting
ideas on the subject, which is evident in his writing.[97]
Evelyn records (30 August 1680) that he and Wren met John
Chardin, the French traveller, and questioned him about the
East.[98]
Wren was also in touch with Dudley North, a Turkey merchant and
an authority on Turkish life, about a technical point of Turkish
dome construction.[99]
George Sandys's Relation,
published over 60 years earlier but reaching its seventh edition
in 1673, had possibly contributed to Wren’s interest in Islamic
buildings.[100]
The book had described the mosques of Constantinople as
`magnificent... all of white Marble, being finished on the top
with gilded spires that reflect the beams they receive with
marvellous splendour' and had proceeded to a detailed account of
Hagia Sophia.[101]
Amongst Wren influences are Islamic minarets, especially those
of `the graceful type found, in Cairene buildings,’ which may
have influenced the design of the later Renaissance
campanili
of Italy, and hence some of Wren's fine city steeples.[102]
And just as Muslim architects had begun to realise the
possibility of using dome and minaret in contrast, Wren also did
use some dome and towers so effectively in contrast at St.
Paul's.[103]
Another instance of later impact occurs in 17thcentury
Turin, where the Baroque architect Guarini created a type of
intersecting ribs for several churches which are strikingly
reminiscent of those of Cordova and its descendants in Spain.[104]Guarini's
manual with drawings of his own monuments was published in 1686
and made its way to Spanish
America where it is
supposed to have influenced the design of a number of Mexican
churches as well.[105]
Closer to us, in the UK,
Oriental motifs made their appearance in the architecture of
railway stations, just as they did, more prominently in seaside
piers, bandstands, kiosks and garden pavilions.[106]Muslim
arches were used at railway entrances,[107]
and it is interesting to see the engineer Robert Stevenson
(1772-1850) giving the elegance of a Mughal minaret to his
beautiful lighthouse at Girdleness, near Aberdeen (1833).[108]
The 1888 Glasgow exhibition, which was mounted in Joseph
Paxton's great Kelvingrove park opposite the tenement was known
as `Baghdad
by the Kelvin' because
of its strikingly Orientalist architecture.
[109]
[1]J.
Harvey: The Development of Architecture
, in The Flowering of the Middle Ages; ed J.
Evans; Thames and Hudson; 1985; pp. 85-105; at p. 85.
[2]
Ibid.
[3]
G.Wiet et al: History; op cit; p. 357.
[4]
Ibid.
[5]
N.F. Cantor: Inventing the Middle Ages, The
Lutterworth Press, Cambridge, 1991. p.270.
[6]J.
Harvey: The Development of Architecture
, op cit; at p. 85.
[7]
Ibid.
[8]
Ibid.
[9]
Ibid. p. 88.
[10]
M.S. Briggs: Architecture
, in The Legacy of Islam, 1st ed; op
cit; pp 155-79: pp155-6.
[11]
G. Wiet et al: History; op cit; p. 357.
[12]
Ibid.
[13]
J.B. Bury: Summary for Chapter V, in The Cambridge
Medieval History, Edited by J. R. Tanner, C. W.
Previte; Z.N. Brooke, Vol IV; 1923.at p.152.
[14]
Ibid.
[15]
M R Menocal: The Arabic Role; op cit; p.27; J. Harvey:
The Development; op cit. p. 86.
[16]
O. Grabar: Islamic Architecture and the West, Influences
and Parallels; in Islam and the Medieval West (S. Ferber
ed); op cit; pp.
60-6; p. 63.
[17]
Ibid.
[18]
Ibid.
[19]
M.Gomez Moreno: Iglesias mozarabes; Madrid; 1919.
[20]
O. Grabar: Islamic Architecture; op cit. p. 62.
[21]
Ibid.
[22]
Ibid. pp. 62-3.
[23]
E. Lambert: l’Art Hispano Mauresque et l’Art Roman; in
Hesperis; Vol 17; pp 29-42.p. 36-7.
[24]
Ibid.
[25]
Christopher Wren who wrote (in his history of
Westminster Abbey, 1713) in Sir Banister Fletcher: A
History of Architecture
: 18th edition, revised by J. C. Palmes; The Athlone
Press, 1975; p. 415.
[26]
J. Harvey: The Master Builders: Architecture
in the Middle
Ages:
Thames and Hudson, London, 1971. p.28.
[27]
G. Sarton
: Introduction; op cit; vol 2; p.334.
[28]
J.H. Harvey, The origins of Gothic Architecture
, in Antiquaries Journal 48 (1968). pp 87-99. D
Talbot Rice: Islamic Art; London, 1965, pp 59,
86-89, 165-8. L. Cochrane: Adelard of Bath
, op cit, pp. 63-4; 68-9.
[29]
J. Harvey: The Master Builders; op cit; pp. 28-9.
[30]J.
Harvey: The Development of Architecture
, p. 88.
[31]
L. Cochrane: Adelard of Bath
; op cit; p. 35.
[32]
J. Harvey quoted here by L. Cochrane: Adelard of Bath
; op cit; p. 35.
[33]
L. Cochrane:
Adelard of Bath
; op cit; p 35.
[34]
J. Harvey quoted here by L. Cochrane: Adelard of Bath
; op cit; p. 35.
[35]
L.
Cochrane: Adelard; op cit; pp 35-6.
[36]
J. Harvey: The Development of Architecture
, op cit; p. 88.
[37]
R. Schnyder: Islamic Ceramics; op cit; p. 30.
[38]
Ibid.
[39]J.
Harvey: The Development of Architecture
, op cit; p. 88.
[40]
G. Le
Bon: La Civilisation des Arabes; p.259.
[41]
G. Wiet et al: History; op cit; p.361.
[42]
E. Wright, General editor: The Medieval; op cit; p. 102.
[43]
M. S. Briggs: Architecture
; op cit; p.179.
[44]
W. Durant: The Age of Faith; op cit; p. 271.
[45]
E. Wright general editor: The Medieval; op cit; p. 102.
[46]
J. Harvey: The Master Builders; op cit; p.24.
[47]
Ibid. p.18.
[48]
Ibid.
[49]
Ibid.
[50]
Ibid. p.27.
[51]
L. Cochrane:
Adelard of Bath
; op cit; p 35.
[52]
J. A. Gaya Nuno: Gormaz, Castillo califal, in
al-Andalus; VIII, 1943, pp. 431-50.
[53]
E. Levi
Provencal: Histoire de l'Espagne; op cit; Vol III;
p.511.
[54]
Ibid. p.64.
On Islamic military fortification in Spain, see G.
Marcais: Manuel d'Art musulman, I, op cit; p. 248-252;
H. Terrasse: l'Art hispano-mauresque, op cit; pp.
143-62.
[55]
W. Durant: The Age of Faith; op cit; p. 271.
[56]
See: L. Torres balbas, Los adarves de las ciudades
hispano-musulmanas, in al-Andalus; XII, 1947, pp.
164-93.
[57]
T. Glick: Islamic and Christian Spain; op cit;
p. 222.
[58]
W. Durant: The Age; op cit; p. 892.
[59] J.
F. O' Callaghan: The Mudejars of Castile and Portugal
in the Twelfth
and Thirteenth centuries: in Muslims under Latin
Rule; J.M.
Powell ed; op cit; pp 11-56: pp. 26-7.
[60] Ibid.
[61]
Fray Jayme Bleda, Cronica de los Moros, p. 877 (Valencia
, 1618). In H.C. Lea: A History of the Inquisition in
Spain, vol 3; The Mac Millan Company, New York,
1907. p.317.
[62]
J. Harvey: The Development; p. 86.
[63]
Ibid.
[64]
L. Cochrane: Adelard of Bath
; op cit; p. 64.
[65]
M. S. Briggs: Architecture
, op cit; pp. 167-9.
[66]
J. Harvey: The Development, op cit; p. 86.
[67]
S.P. Scott: History; Vol II; op cit; p. 569.
[68]
Ibid.
[69]
D. Matthew: The Norman Kingdom of Sicily
; op cit; p.91.
[70]
R. I. Burns: Muslims; op cit; p.65.
[71]
S.P. Scott: History; op cit; Vol II, p.222.
[72]
Ibid. p.569.
[73]
Ibid.
[74]
The Chronicles of Froissart, tr. J. Bourchier, Lord
Berners (London: D.Nutt, 1903), vol i, pp 269-74, in E
Perroy: Le Moyen Age, Presses Universitaires de
France, 1956. pp. 245-6.
[75]
J. Strzygowski: Origins of Christian Church Art;
Oxford, 1923; p. 64.
[76]
E. Male: l’Art et les artistes du Moyen Age; 1927; in
J.W. Thompson: The Introduction of Arabic
Science; op cit; p.193.
[77]
S.P. Scott: History; Vol II; op cit; p. 569.
[78]
O. Grabar: Islamic Architecture and the West; op cit; p.
62.
[79]
M. S. Briggs: Architecture
, op cit; p.176.
[80]
O. Grabar: Islamic architecture; op cit; pp. 63.
[81]
J. Harvey: The Development of Architecture
, p. 101.
[82]
Ibid.
[83]
Ibid.
[84]
Ibid.
[85]
Ibid.
[86]
Ibid.
[87]
N. Daniel: The Arabs
and Medieval
Europe;
op cit; p.226.
[88]
J. Harvey: The Development of Architecture
, p. 101.
[89]
Ibid.
[90]
S.P. Scott: History; op cit; vol II,
p.559.
[91]
I. Grattan-Guiness: The Fontana History of the
Mathematical Sciences, Fontana Press, 1997.176
[92]
A. Ozdural: Mathematics
and Arts
: Connections between Theory and practice in the
Medieval Islamic world; in Historia Mathematica;
27 (2000); pp. 171-201; at p. 171.
[93]
Ibid. p. 172.
[94]
L. Cochrane: Adelard of Bath
; op cit; p. 69.
[95]
P. Lacroix: Science and Literature in the Middle Ages;
op cit; p.77.
[96]
In Cochrane: Adelard of Bath
, op cit, p. 64.
[97]
John Sweetman: The Oriental Obsession; op cit; p.47.
[98]
Ibid. p.53.
[99]
R. North: Lives of Francis North; 1826 ed; iii; p. 42 in
J Sweetman: The Oriental; op cit; p.53.
[100]
J. Sweetman: The Oriental; p.53.
[101]
Ibid.
[102]
M. S. Briggs: Architecture
, op cit; p.174.
[103]
Ibid.
[104]
O. Grabar: Islamic Architecture; op cit; p 63.
[105]
Ibid.
[106]
J. M. Mac Kenzie: Orientalism, History, Theory and
the Arts; Manchester University Press; 1995: p.xx.
[107]
F.D. Klingender: Art and the Industrial Revolution;
1968; p. 124; in J. Sweetman: The Oriental; op cit; p.
111
[108]
J. Sweetman: The Oriental Obsession; C3; p.111.
[109]
J. M. Mac Kenzie: Orientalism, op cit;
p.xx. |