Abstract
The ivory casket made in Cuenca in A.D. 1026 and signed by Mohammad ibn Zayyan constitutes invaluable evidence for the study of artistic transfers between Al-Andalus and the Iberian Christian kingdoms. In the 12th century this piece was transformed in the monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos (Burgos) with the addition of Christian-themed enamels and reused as a reliquary. The appropriation of this object within the ideological context of the Christian expansion in the Iberian Peninsula allows us to reflect on the meaning given to it by the Silos monks. Moreover, a comparative study of the casket with Romanesque sculpture shows the existence of important iconographic influences of this piece in Christian art that have not been sufficiently studied until now. Its analysis offers clues about the way in which figurative motifs could be transmitted from Andalusi to Christian art and about the symbolic purposes with which they were used. This work highlights the need to study conjointly the transfer of artistic pieces and the transmission of figurative motifs from one context to another in addition to proposing a methodology for their study.
Highlights
Transfers between Andalusi Art and the Spanish RomanesqueIberian art from the 10th to the 12th centuries has been the subject of countless studies from the 19th century on due to its extraordinary richness and uniqueness
We propose the need to undertake the joint analysis of both phenomena, both the transfer of figurative themes and that of sumptuary pieces from Al-Andalus to the Christian kingdoms
In the Christian world, Andalusi objects often found their way to sacred spaces where they frequently served as containers for relics
Summary
Iberian art from the 10th to the 12th centuries has been the subject of countless studies from the 19th century on due to its extraordinary richness and uniqueness. In the Christian world, Andalusi objects often found their way to sacred spaces where they frequently served as containers for relics Regarding their meaning, in Al-Andalus, they would have been considered a symbolic expression of regal power, taking into account that their manufacture was the exclusive prerogative of the ruler, who most likely dictated their iconographic programme The euphoria that followed the taking of Toledo in 1085 and the symbolic importance of this conquest, since it was the ancient Christian capital prior to the Islamic occupation, leads us to place the reuse and transformation of this piece in the ideological context of the sacralised war against Islam, where the idea of recovery of the territory prevailed This idea is very present in the Historia Silense, a chronicle written by the monks of Silos themselves in c.1118 so that they partake of this mentality. We know that the later Christian tradition considered this piece as a trophy donated to the monastery of Silos by Count Fernán González ([27] pp. 51–52), who had conquered those lands fighting against the troops of ‘Abd al-Rahman III and was commemorated as a hero of the fight against Islam in the epic poem that was devoted to him in the 13th century
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