Ml 



SARACENIC ARCHITECTURE. 



SARACENS. 



282 



and dividing the plan into nineteen aisles in one direction (350 feet in 

 length), and thirty-five in the other. But it is disproportionately low 



i pared with its great extent, the height to the roofs being only 

 about 34 feet. The arches are carried upon columns without entabla- 

 tures as in Romanesque buildings. [ROMANESQUE ABCHITECTUBE.] 

 The interior presents a singular array of double, circular, and horse- 

 ahoe arches, some of Uie upper ones being curiously interlaced. There 

 is a great display of rich carving of a modified Byzantine character, 

 and much of the peculiar tracery and diapering, as well as numerous 

 inscriptions of the kind described above. The pointed arch does not 

 occur ; the domes are comparatively recent additions. In that division 

 of the building appropriated to the imams and chiefs was the great Libia, 

 or sanctuary (in which the Koran was deposited), an octagon covered 

 with a cupola shaped out of a single block of stone ; the mikrab, or 

 pulpit, and the matiura, or khaJif 's seat. After the conquest of the 

 city in 1236, by San Ferdinand, this mosque was converted into the 

 cathedral, in consequence of which the character of the interior has 

 been greatly injured by the erection of a Gothic choir in its centre. 

 As a splendid work of a later epoch of the style, Cordova could once 

 boast of the palace called the Az-zahnt, erected about the middle of the 

 10th century by the celebrated Abd-el-Rhaman III., the eighth 

 1,'nuyyah sovereign of Spain. Of thia edifice, which was at the dis- 

 tance of about two leagues from the city, nothing now remains to 

 attest its former magnificence, except the descriptions given of it by 

 Mohammedan writers, according to which it was adorned with 4000 

 marble pillars, and had walls and pavements of the same material. 

 The sumptuousness ascribed to the edifice and its fountains and baths 

 might pass for mere Oriental hyperbolism, were it not that the evidence 

 still afforded by the Alhambra, and by parts of the Alcazar at Seville, 

 removes the suspicion of exaggeration ; or rather, the exuberant 

 beauties revealed to us by the latter structures greatly .surpass any- 

 thing the most florid description can picture to the mind. 



The Alhambra, the residence of the Moorish kings of Granada, is 

 supposed by some to have been founded by Mohammed Ibn Albanian, 

 the first ruler, who reigned from 1238 to 1273 ; according to others, 

 was begun by his successor Mohammed II. (1273-1302), or by Nasser, 

 and completed by Abu-1-hejaj in 1348. This highly interesting and 

 important monument of western Arabian architecture is now rendered 

 comparatively familiar to us, by descriptions and drawings, and by 

 geometrical and pictorial illustrations of its principal parts and deco- 

 rations, not only in the elaborate works of Murphy, Jones, and 

 Hasscmcr, but also in many drawings and publications of a more popular 

 kind by Roberts, Lewis, and other able draftsmen, while several parts 

 interior have been reproduced by casts and restorations in the 

 Crystal Palace at Sydenham. Here therefore it need only be noticed 

 briefly and generally : it is described, with cuts, under AI.IIAMBHA, in 

 theGi:u... IMV. 



The Alhambra was a fortreu palace, the outer-walls of which enclosed 

 an area 2500 feet long and 650 wide. Its superb paUvce has suffered 

 alike from wilful destruction and from neglect, yet its ruins are among 

 the most romantic and most interesting in the world. What is left of 

 it consists of two great courts or hall* and several of smaller size. Of 

 these the richest and most impressive is the Court of the Lions, which 

 extends 100 feet from east to west, and is 60 feet wide : yet imj 

 as it still is, and gorgeous as it must have originally appeared, it is 

 really composed of only the most seemingly fragile materials wood 



1 with stucco. Its general character and appearance will be best 

 uudcntuod by the reproduction at tin; Crystal I'aliice ; Imt it mint be 

 miit-iiil -i ed in looking at the copy that whilst the original is of much 

 larger size, the central fountain, from which it derive* its name, is, in 

 each, of the same dimensions. On each side of the Court of thu Lions 



inich smaller apartment, that on the north being known as the 

 Hall of the Sisters, while on the south is the gorgeous Hall of the 

 Abencerrages, reproduced of the actual dimensions by Mr. Jones at the 

 Crystal Palace. At the vast end stands the Hall of Judgment. Before 

 the Hall of the Two Sisters are the Baths. \\\-<t of the Court of the 

 Lions, and at right angles to it, is the second great court, called the 

 of the Alberca an older ami less ornamented building. There 

 are other connected rooms and detached buildings to which it is suffi- 

 cient to allude, while a third large court, probably a mosque, is said to 

 have been > > make room for the cold and formal palace 



erected by Charles V. adjoining the Court of the Alberca. The archi- 

 tectural character of the interior, on which almost exclusively the 

 florid ornament is lavished, has been already spoken of, and the arches, 

 pill.-ira, tracery, diapering, &c., described. The Alhambra is considered, 

 and justly, as the crowning work of Saracenic architecture in Europe; 

 it marks a period when the style had reached the very verge of deco- 

 rative propriety, and it is probable that any further progress would 

 nave been towards men' voluptuous excess, and that the decline 

 would have been swift and certain. Other remains of Saracenic build- 

 ings are still numerous in all those parts of Spain which were occupied 

 by the Moors, and some of them are of considerable interest. It is 

 noteworthy, however, that the only approximation to a minaret, or to 

 any of thoae light and lofty forms in which the Saracenic architects of 

 the East delighted, is found in the Giralda at Seville ; and this bears 



resemblance to an Italian campanile, it being a square of 45 feet, 

 and rising undiminiahed to a height of 185 feet : the upper and smaller 

 portion was added in 1508. 



The earliest of the Egyptian buildings of which any portions re- 

 main is the Mosque of Amrou at Old Cairo, begun about A.D. 642, 

 but greatly altered, if not rebuilt, about 60 years later. It is a nearly 

 square building about 390 by 360 feet, surrounded on each side by 

 colonnades or arcades, the columns of which, 245 in number, were 

 taken from Byzantine and Roman buildings. The arches, as is usual 

 in arcades in the Saracenic buildings of the East, have tie-beams, in 

 this instance of wood. Of the original ornamentation little is left. A 

 more important example of the style is the great mosque erected, by 

 Ibn Tooloon at Cairo, towards the end of the 9th century, and which is 

 still in a state of tolerable preservation. Like the preceding, it is 

 a nearly square structure, the outer walls being 455 feet by 390 ; the 

 great court, nearly 300 feet square, is said to have been designed by a 

 Byzantine architect. Like all early Mohammedan buildings, it is built 

 entirely of brick covered with stucco, and all the rich interior orna- 

 mentation is of stucco. The arches of the colonnade surrounding 

 the great court are of the pointed horse-shoe form, and are borne on 

 massive piers with attached shafts at the angles. The windows, 

 mostly of pointed horse-shoe arches, are all filled with the pierced 

 tracery described above, which is not only singularly graceful in design, 

 but the effect of which is described as exceedingly cool and pleasing in 

 such a climate. Other mosques in Cairo afford very interesting speci- 

 mens of this style of architecture of a later date ; as that of Barkook, 

 erected about the middle of the 12th, century, which has a fine dome, 

 a lofty and very elegant minaret, and other ornamental features, and 

 iu which the pointed arch is employed with as much facility as in 

 a Gothic cathedral. But a far more imposing building is the mosque 

 of Hhasaneyn, or Hassan, which is of great size and height, very 

 massive in construction, and is crowned by a noble dome and two very 

 handsome minarets, each 280 feet high. The mosque of El Moyed, 

 erected in 1415, is remarkable for the richness of its interior. 



For the fall of the Moorish dynasty in Spain, the Mohammedans 

 were to a certain extent recompensed by the conquest of the great 

 Christian city and territory of Byzantium ; and from that time dates 

 a new variety of Saracenic architecture which had its origin in Constan- 

 tinople. On the capture of Constantinople, Santa Sophia was con- 

 verted by the conquerors into their chief mosque, and made their 

 architectural model. The older Saracenic style indeed continued to be 

 the basis of the new, but it was modified throughout by the Byzantine 

 influence. The dome became a more and more prominent feature; 

 ornamentation was applied with more economy, more grouped and 

 massed, more simplified and less diffused. But the old Eastern exu- 

 berance found vent in various ways, while the taste and energy which 

 served at once to direct and control it, became less and less apparent, 

 and the style steadily deteriorated, though as long as vitality lasted, it 

 exhibited gleams of a rich quaint fancy. The first mosque erected in 

 Constantinople was built by Mahomet II., the conqueror of the city; 

 and a large mosque is still shown ag his ; but very little remains of the 

 original fabric. More perfect is the great mosque erected about the 

 middle of the 16th centuiy by Suleiman the Magnificent. Avowedly 

 an imitation of Santa Sophia, it is yet larger, richer, and to an archi- 

 tectural eye, superior in form, the dome especially being higher and 

 better proixjrtioned. The great mosque, called At-Meidan, erected 

 by Achmet in the first half of the 17th century, is remarkable among 

 other things for its array of cupolas and its minarets. No less than 

 thirty small domes surround the outer court, each bay of the arcade 

 being surmounted by one. The mosque proper has a well-proportioned 

 great dome (80 feet in diameter), Hanked by four smaller domes, while 

 (as will be seen from the cut in the article MOSQUK), weveral other 

 small domes occur in different parts of the building. In this, as iu the 

 other Constantinopolitau mosques, the columns which support the 

 horse-shoe arches of the arcades are fastened together by iron tie-rods. 

 The great dome of this mosque is borne on four immense piers, which 

 are faced with marble. The minarets are of very graceful form and 

 proportions. The various ornamental details are pure in character, 

 whilst they, as well as the general form of the building, show almost 

 entire freedom from Byzantine taste. But this was the last great 

 effort of Turkish architecture. European artificers soon after this 

 began to be employed, and European fashions to be imitated, and the 

 native style became proportionally debased. 



SARACENS, a name improperly given by the Christian authors of 

 the middle ages to the Mohammedans who invaded France and settled 

 in Sicily. Concerning the etymology of this word there have been 

 various opinions. Du Cange (' Glossarium,' r. ' Saraceni ') derives it 

 from " Sarah," the wife of Abraham ; Hottinger (' Bib. Or.') from the 

 Arabic word saraca, which means " to steal, to plunder." Forster, in 

 bos ' Journey from Bengal to England,' derives it from sahra, " a 

 desert." But the true derivation of the word is sharkeyn, which 

 means in Arabic " the Eastern people " first corrupted into Saraceni 

 (Sapcuaifoi) by the Greek, and thence into Saraceni by the Latin 

 writers. Stephanus Byzantinus says that "Saraka is a region of 

 Arabia, adjoining the Nabathici, and the inhabitants are called 

 ' Saraceni.-' " Ptolemy (vi. 7) makes Saraka a city of Arabia Felix. 

 The name Saraceni occurs in Pliny (vi. 28), and it seems that it began 

 to be used about the 1st century of our era, and was applied to the 

 Bedouin Arabs who inhabited the countries between the Euphrates 

 and the Tigris, and separated the Roman possessions in Asia from the 

 dominions of the Parthian kings. The description of the Saraceni by 



