MORESQUE. Elsewhere in Northern Africa the Arabs produced no such important works as in Egypt, nor is the architecture of the other Moslem states so well preserved or so well known. Constructive design would appear to have been there even more completely subordinated to decoration; tiling and plaster-relief took the place of more architectural elements and materials, while horseshoe and cusped arches were substituted for the simpler and more architectural pointed arch (Fig. 82). The courts of palaces and public buildings were surrounded by ranges of horseshoe arches on slender columns; these last being provided with capitals of a form rarely seen in Cairo. Towers were built of much more massive design than the Cairo minarets, usually with a square, almost solid shaft and a more open lantern at the top, sometimes in several diminishing stories.
HISPANO-MORESQUE. The most splendid phase of this branch of Arabic architecture is found not in Africa but in Spain, which was overrun in 710–713 by the Moors, who established there the independent Khalifate of Cordova. This was later split up into petty kingdoms, of which the most important were Granada, Seville, Toledo, and Valencia. This dismemberment of the Khalifate led in time to the loss of these cities, which were one by one recovered by the Christians during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; the capture of Granada, in 1492, finally destroying the Moorish rule.
The dominion of the Moors in Spain was marked by a high civilization and an extraordinary activity in building. The style they introduced became the national style in the regions they occupied, and even after the expulsion of the Moors was used in buildings erected by Christians and by Jews. The “House of Pilate,” at Seville, is an example of this, and the general use of the Moorish style in Jewish synagogues, down to our own day, both in Spain and abroad, originated in the erection of synagogues for the Jews in Spain by Moorish artisans and in Moorish style, both during and after the period of Moslem supremacy.
Besides innumerable mosques, castles, bridges, aqueducts, gates, and fountains, the Moors erected several monuments of remarkable size and magnificence. Specially worthy of notice among them are the Great Mosque at Cordova, the Alcazars of Seville and Malaga, the Giralda at Seville, and the Alhambra at Granada.
FIG. 83.—INTERIOR OF THE GREAT MOSQUE AT CORDOVA.
The Mosque at Cordova, begun in 786 by ‘Abd-er-Rahman, enlarged in 876, and again by El Mansour in 976, is a vast arcaded hall 375 feet × 420 feet in extent, but only 30 feet high (Fig. 83). The rich wooden ceiling rests upon seventeen rows of thirty to thirty-three columns each, and two intersecting rows of piers, all carrying horseshoe arches in two superposed ranges, a large portion of those about the sanctuary being cusped, the others plain, except for the alternation of color in the voussoirs. The mihrâb niche is particularly rich in its minutely carved incrustations and mosaics, and a dome ingeniously formed by intersecting ribs covers the sanctuary before it. This form of dome occurs frequently in Spain.
The Alcazars at Seville and Malaga, which have been restored in recent years, present to-day a fairly correct counterpart of the castle-palaces of the thirteenth century. They display the same general conceptions and decorative features as the Alhambra, which they antedate. The Giralda at Seville is, on the other hand, unique. It is a lofty rectangular tower, its exterior panelled and covered with a species of quarry-ornament in relief; it terminated originally in two or three diminishing stages or lanterns, which were replaced in the sixteenth century by the present Renaissance belfry.
The Alhambra is universally considered to be the masterpiece of Hispano-Moresque art, partly no doubt on account of its excellent preservation. It is most interesting as an example of the splendid citadel-palaces built by the Moorish conquerors, as well as for its gorgeous color-decoration of minute quarry-ornament stamped or moulded in the wet plaster wherever the walls are not wainscoted with tiles. It was begun in 1248 by Mohammed-ben-Al-Hamar, enlarged in 1279 by his successor, and again in 1306, when its mosque was built. Its plan (Fig. 84) shows two large courts and a smaller one next the mosque, with three great square chambers and many of minor importance. Light arcades surround the Court of the Lions with its fountain, and adorn the ends of the other chief court; and the stalactite pendentive, rare in Moorish work, appears in the “Hall of Ambassadors” and some other parts of the edifice. But its chief glory is its ornamentation, less durable, less architectural than that of the Cairene buildings, but making up for this in delicacy and richness. Minute vine-patterns and Arabic inscriptions are interwoven with waving intersecting lines, forming a net-like framework, to all of which deep red, blue, black, and gold give an indescribable richness of effect.