This is Ab, setting up a blog for my parents, so they can inspire envy, I mean, keep us informed of their most recent travels. They leave today for seven weeks in Spain and Italy.
I'll let them fill in the details!
My interest lies in the transmission of ideas from the high Muslim culture of Baghdad of the 9th & 10th centuries to the barbarian West. They gave us such a kick start with ideas, skills and their implementation that they triggered the renaissance of the twelfth century. As a simplification, the two routes of transmission were through translation movements in southern Italy in the 11th century and in Toledo in the 12th century.
The walled city of Toledo is a palimpsest of textures from the Roman Tolentum, Visigothic capital, Ummayad stronghold and Christian reconquista in 1084. Each culture has left their mark in stone and re-used pillars and capitols. The water heating system of the Roman baths remains but the caldarium is a plaza and the tepidarium has been incorporated into a residential courtyard. The church of S Salvador had been a mosque whose builders had re-used visigothic pillars and capitals. The beautiful mosque of Christo de la Luz uses brickwork to develop a textured tactile surface that changes as the sun moves its shadows, reminiscent of Bukhara. The church of Santa Maria la Blanca with wonderful Ummayad arches was a synagogue. Samuel Ha-Levi, Jewish poet and thinker, and also treasurer to a 14th century Spanish King, left us another stunning synagogue in Mozarabic style. Even the vast Gothic cathedral is built partly on a visigothic foundation and the visigothic Mozarabic Liturgy is still authorized for use in this most Catholic of countries.
In the harsh sunlight, the deep shadows do not relieve the heat of the afternoon or the press of tourists. But in the early evening, the paseo of locals takes over and families and young people take over the narrow cobbled streets and lanes, built for foot traffic or donkeys or the horses of the nobility. Thirty thousand people lived on top of each other when it again became the capital of emerging Christian Spain and Alfonso the Wise sponsored the translation movement.
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ReplyDeleteAb asked me to get on with putting something into the blog - see below.
DeleteTextures in Toledo
ReplyDeleteMy interest lies in the transmission of ideas from the high Muslim culture of Baghdad of the 9th & 10th centuries to the barbarian West. They gave us such a kick start with ideas, skills and their implementation that they triggered the renaissance of the twelfth century. As a simplification, the two routes of transmission were through translation movements in southern Italy in the 11th century and in Toledo in the 12th century.
The walled city of Toledo is a palimpsest of textures from the Roman Tolentum, Visigothic capital, Ummayad stronghold and Christian reconquista in 1084. Each culture has left their mark in stone and re-used pillars and capitols. The water heating system of the Roman baths remains but the caldarium is a plaza and the tepidarium has been incorporated into a residential courtyard. The church of S Salvador had been a mosque whose builders had re-used visigothic pillars and capitals. The beautiful mosque of Christo de la Luz uses brickwork to develop a textured tactile surface that changes as the sun moves its shadows, reminiscent of Bukhara. The church of Santa Maria la Blanca with wonderful Ummayad arches was a synagogue. Samuel Ha-Levi, Jewish poet and thinker, and also treasurer to a 14th century Spanish King, left us another stunning synagogue in Mozarabic style.
Even the vast Gothic cathedral is built partly on a visigothic foundation and the visigothic Mozarabic Liturgy is still authorized for use in this most Catholic of countries.
In the harsh sunlight, the deep shadows do not relieve the heat of the afternoon or the press of tourists. But in the early evening, the paseo of locals takes over and families and young people take over the narrow cobbled streets and lanes, built for foot traffic or donkeys or the horses of the nobility. Thirty thousand people lived on top of each other when it again became the capital of emerging Christian Spain and Alfonso the Wise sponsored the translation movement.