In October of 1901 a very important and beautiful mosaic was discovered at Italica. It is known as “the mosaic of Bacchus,” the worship of which deity, says Señor Quintero, was probably general in Andalusia, owing to her wealth of vines. This mosaic was found at a depth of six feet six inches below the surface of the soil, and measures twenty-one feet square. It is believed to have formed the pavement of a Roman dining-chamber.

Mosaic in the manner of the Greeks and Romans seems in Spain to have disappeared with the Visigoths. That it was known to these is told us by Saint Isidore:—“Pavimenta originem apud graecos habent elaboratae arte picturae, litostrata parvulis crustis ac tesselis tinctis in varios colores.”[66]

LI
DOOR OF THE MIHRAB
(Showing mosaic-work. Cordova Cathedral)

It is impossible to affirm with any confidence that glazed earthenware, whether in the form of tiles or other objects, was manufactured by the Spanish Moors during the Cordovese Caliphate, or the period of the kinglings of Taifa. No trace of it has been discovered among the scanty ruins of Medina Az-zahará[67] and Az-zahira—ancient palaces of Cordova—or in the marvellous mosque. We know, however, that towards the seventh century the Arabs borrowed from Byzantium the mosaic-work of tessons known as psephosis fsefysa, and this, or something similar, was used, though probably to a small extent, among the Muslims of the Spanish Caliphate. Although, towards the middle of the thirteenth century, the historian Aben-Said, a native of Granada, recorded that in Al-Andalus “is made a kind of mofassass which is called in the East alfoseifesa,” remains of this elaborate product only exist to-day at Cordova, where patches may yet be seen lining the dome of the mirhab in the vast aljama (Plate [li].). The mosaic in question is stated to have been a gift from the Byzantine emperor to the sultan Al-Hakem, and was set in place by a skilled workman, a Greek, who, like the offering itself, proceeded from Constantinople.

During his stay at Cordova this Greek was helped by certain of the Sultan's slaves, who thus acquired the secrets of the craft, and practised it thereafter.[68]

Rodrigo Amador de los Rios contends, however, that this decoration is in no sense a true mosaic, but just a tempera painting executed on the wall and overlaid with cubes of glass. In any case, no other specimen of such work has been discovered in any part of the Peninsula.

By the time of the Almohade invasion or very shortly after—that is, towards the twelfth century,—the Spanish Moors had grown acquainted with glazed earthenware. Indeed, the Almohades are believed by some authorities to have actually introduced it. Gestoso, on the contrary, suggests that Spain may have transmitted it to Africa. However this may be, the Almohades used it largely in the decoration of their homes and public buildings in Andalusia; first as aliceres or bands composed of smallish pieces running round a room, and subsequently in the more effective and more useful form of azulejos proper. The Spanish Moors employed the word almofassass to designate both aliceres and azulejos. Nevertheless, the two were not identical, although Riaño takes them to be so. He says: “The earliest tiles or azulejos made in Spain are composed of small pieces let into the wall, forming geometrical patterns.” These, in fact, were aliceres. It is not so easy to define an azulejo. We read in Aben-Said, quoted by Al-Makkari: “There is another kind of work employed for paving houses. It is called azzulechí and resembles mofassass. It has wonderful colouring, and replaces the coloured marble used by the people of the East to decorate their chambers.”

This definition is not completely clear. Those of the Christian-Spanish writers are not more satisfactory. Covarrubias calls these objects “small bricks, square and of other shapes, used for lining chambers in the mansions of the wealthy, or in garden paths.” Nebrija calls them tessela pavimenticia, adding that they bear the name of azulejos because the earliest ones were of a blue colour—a statement which Dozy supports by instancing the Persian-Arabic zaward or “blue stone.”