Admiration and Awe: Morisco Buildings and Identity Negotiations in Early Modern Spanish Historiography, by Antonio Urquízar-Herrera

Abstract

As Christian conquerors from the north of the Iberian Peninsula gradually gained possession of Islamic Spain during the medieval reconquista (largely between 1085 and 1492), they not only took control of lands, cities and peoples but also came into contact with a very different architectural style. The result was a fascinating coexistence of cultural hybridity and anti-Islamic prejudice. While some Islamic buildings were torn down and replaced with new Christian edifices (such as the Great Mosque of Toledo), others were preserved or adapted (mostly notably the Mosque/Cathedral of Cordoba, the Mosque/Cathedral of Seville and the Alhambra palace in Granada, which all survive today and are major tourist attractions). Elements of Islamic art and architecture were incorporated into buildings built after the conquest in what has, since the nineteenth century, commonly been called the ‘Mudejar style’. In this impressive work, Antonio Urguízar-Herrera presents and analyses the ways in which the conquerors developed a variety of different narratives relating to the architecture of Islamic Spain and the ‘strategies of religious and cultural appropriation’ that evolved in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Different interpretations arose, and some Christians sought to stake a claim to this Andalusi legacy, presenting it as a part of the historical narrative of their kingdoms. Christian images supposedly hidden in churches turned into mosques at the time of the Islamic conquest in 711 and then miraculously rediscovered after the ‘reconquest’—such as the painting of Our Lady the Ancient (Virgen de la Antigua) in the Cathedral of Seville—gave rise to legends and cults that served the purpose of creating a legitimising historical continuity connecting the Christians with the newly conquered lands.