Alfonso X y el Mediterráneo: algunas reflexiones acerca de la influencia de los manuscritos iluminados árabes en las Cantigas de Santa María. Alfonso X of Castile and the Mediterranean: some considerations about the influence of the illuminated Arabic manuscripts on the Cantigas de Santa María

Abstract

El presente estudio pretende ofrecer un análisis sobre las fuentes visuales de origen árabe y su influencia en las Cantigas de Santa María de Alfonso X el Sabio. Partiendo de un estado de la cuestión donde se tienen en cuenta aquellas propuestas realizadas a lo largo de estos años en relación al marco geográfico de influencias —situadas inicialmente en Francia e Italia pero defendiendo posteriormente la necesidad de reubicar la miniatura alfonsí dentro del ámbito del Mediterráneo— se pretenden aportar nuevas reflexiones críticas, cuestionando algunos de los vínculos concretos e intrínsecos que se han establecido entre el marial alfonsí y otros manuscritos iluminados del mundo árabe, especialmente algunos folios relativos a los Maqamat de al-Hariri.The aim of this paper is to provide an analysis of the Arabic visual resources and their influences on the Alfonso X the Learned’s Cantigas de Santa Maria.Firstly, I present the current status of the issue taking into account all of the proposals made throughout the last approaches concerning the geographical frame of influences. These frames of influences had been situated by the first researchers, particularly in the 19th Century, in France and Italy.Subsequently, other «inspirations», such as the Arabic and Byzantine world, started to be considered as an important focus to help us understand some of the miniatures of our manuscript, not only in style but also in regards to profane topics, which are generally predominant in the alphonsine productions.In response to these last suggestions, one of the principal purposes of this study is to defend the necessity to understand the alphonsine illumination in a Mediterranean context. Furthermore, I aim to present a new critical approach by questioning some of the specific links established between our codex and the Arabic illuminated manuscripts. In particular, there are some folios of the Maqamat illuminated by al-Wasiti which have been considered an essential influence for the Cantigas miniaturists. I go on to explain that other depictions that can be found in different 13th century painting productions— such as the crusader illumination, the miniatures made in the Staufen Court in Sicily or the Mural paintings of the conquest of Majorca, among others— present a very similar composition to those Arabic depictions and, therefore, to our Castilian manuscript.For that reason, taking these new proposals into consideration allow us to distance the Cantigas de Santa María from the Arabic models, without rejecting their presence, in order to talk about general depictions that appear in different productions made in the second half of the 13th century in diverse European courts and Mediterranean commercial points. Finally, we can affirm that the Cantigas de Santa María is the result of a fusion between foreign and local resources, and consequently it is difficult to find specific sources that could have been known and copied in an itinerant court.