Venice and Islam in the Middle Ages: Some Observations on the Question of Architectural Influence

Abstract

Once described by the great Venetian art historian Giuseppe Fiocco as a colossal suq, the city of Venice has always conveyed a distinctly oriental atmosphere to the western european visitor. Mystified by its labyrinth of dark, narrow, often dead-end streets, twisting at right-angles through densely built-up, separately demarcated parishes, glimpsing fragrant gardens hidden behind high, crenellated walls, sniffing the pungent odours of exotic oriental spices in the bustling, crowded markets, the traveller might well have imagined himself transported, as if on a magic carpet, to one of the great mercantile centres of the Middle East — to Baghdad, Cairo or Damascus — to the world of Marco Polo’s travels or the Arabian Nights.