The Middle-Way Point of the Angels’ Battle in the Piedmont Region

January 28, 2023 Joanna Pyrgies 2 Comments

Turin was very warm but covered in clouds yesterday so I was afraid of an inclement weather on the following day, when together with my travel companion and friend, Gosia, we were going to climb up the Alpes. Our destination was the famous sanctuary of Sacra di San Michele; its impressive silhouette has perched on Mount Pirchiriano, which is jutting out at almost 1000 meters (exactly 936m) above sea level in Italian region of Piedmont, in the Alpes.

The Egyptian Museum and the Shroud of Turin

Piedmont, or ‘Piemonte’ in Italian, literally means the “land at the foot of the mountains”. It is located in the north-western part of Italy, bordered to the north by Valle d’Aosta and Switzerland, to the east by Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna, to the south by Liguria and to the west by France. This beautiful land offers a lot of various attractions and breathtaking views, from beautiful alpine lakes and mountain landscapes to charming monuments and towns with vineyards. The region is also famous for delicious food, offering local cheese, truffles, and chocolate, not to mention delightful Piedmont wine and beer!

One evening, we went for a famous Italian dessert, which is undoubtedly tiramisu, and another time, we enjoyed by sharing a good portion of bagna cauda, which is a real speciality in Province of Piedmont: melted cheese, with olive oil and butter, flavoured with fresh anchovy and garlic, and all of that served in a hollowed-out bread, and with various snacks for dipping. Actually, Autumn and Winter seasons are just perfect moments for tasting fondue as it warms you up, and we were just in time for tasting it, visiting the region at the end of October.

Piedmont’s capital is Turin – the second largest cultural and economic centre in northern Italy, which can boast one of the greatest collections of ancient Egyptian artifacts, preserved by the Egyptian Museum (see: Acrobatic Somersault of the Egyptian Dancer from Turin), and the holiest relic of Christianity, which is the Holy Shroud (Santa Sindone), also known as the Shroud of Turin, because t is well-kept-up at the seat of the Archbishop of Turin, namely, inside the Cattedrale di San Giovanni Battista. Although it is not possible to see it but on special occasions, the faithful always have an opportunity to approach the chapel, where it is preserved.

Along the Demonic Rift, on the Fourth Stop on Saint Michael’s Sword

The architectural symbol of Piedmont is, however, Sacra di San Michele, which is also called Saint Michael’s Abbey, located above the municipalities of Sant’Ambrogio di Torino and Chiusa di San Michele. Either you follow ‘Saint Michael’s Sword’ from north southwards, as we do, or from the south northwards, that would be the fourth, out of seven stops on the pilgrimage way dedicated to the Archangel Michael. The complex lies also on the route of ‘Via Francigena’, an ancient pilgrim path from Rome to Canterbury, and while it is followed southwards, it is called Via Romea. The fact that Sacra di San Michele is the fourth stop on the pilgrimage path, either way it is taken, it is so half-way of the whole Line. Consequently, Sacra di San Michele is also located just in the middle of the ‘Via Michaelica’, namely the section of Saint Michael’s pilgrimage path between the two ancient and most significant monastic sites of Saint Michael, namely Mont Saint Michel in Normandy, in northern France, and Santuario di San Michele Arcangelo on Monte Gargano, in southern Italy. Precisely, there are 1000 kilometres from each of those sanctuaries to this half-way pilgrimage stop, which the Mont Pirchiriano used to be in the past, before it actually grew in significance, as an abbey and a strategic point on the way, which is believed to have originally been traced by the Archangel himself, with his sword carried against demons.

A legend goes that a furious battle in heaven opened a long rift, stretching from Mont Saint Michel to Monte Gargano, by which some of the fallen angels were devoured before it closed back, creating the original way of the triumphant Archangel. Consequently, although the rift is not visible today, its presence is still marked by ‘Via Michaelica’. From the Middle Ages, the route was followed by pilgrims and today, by both, pilgrims and tourists, looking for an authentic experience of feeling the mysterious past.

Welcomed by the Archangel at the Foot of His Abbey

Saint Michael’s Abbey is located nearly 30 kilometres in a direct line, north-west of Turin. It takes less than an hour to reach the place by car but there are also good train connections from Turin to nearby towns, such as Saint’ Ambrogio di Torino, Avigliana or Chiusa di San Michele, from where you can either take a pilgrimage trail or a taxi to drop you just at the foot of the Abbey. We decided to call a taxi in the morning to get to the Sanctuario from Turin, and come back by train from Saint’ Ambrogio. It was dictated by a need to arrive on Mount Pirchiriano just before it opens to avoid larger groups of people filling in the space of the complex. Moreover, we were not in a good physical shape to do trekking up from Sant’Ambrogio, which is quite steep and difficult to follow. Our taxi stopped in the park in the Piazzale Croce Nera, which is 500 metres from the Abbey. Despite my worries, the weather on our day of meeting with the Archangel turned out to be exceptionally good; a lot of sunshine with a light breeze from the Valley of Susa made our walking tour an agreeable experience. The road led us through a shadow of trees, between which an impressive corpus kept emerging with reddish and blueish colours between their branches. Just at the foot of its massive entrance, we were warmly welcomed by a modern statue of the Archangel with his sword embedded in the rocky foundation of the abbey.

Saint Giovanni in the Val of Susa

The Pirchiriano Mount’s name is quite ancient and means ‘pigs’, as much as the nearby Caprasio stands for ‘goats’, and Musiné for ‘donkeys’, which may be related to ancient beliefs of the Celts who had lived in the region till the mid of the first century AD.

Some monumental remains on the Mount witness to a story that the Pirchiriano had already been a military stronghold built by the Romans, who venerated there mostly unidentified Alpine deities. Longboards, who occupied the site between the sixth and the end of the seventh centuries, were successively replaced by the Carolingians, who left the Pirchiriano by the end of the ninth century, giving their way to the Saracens. Finally, the Pirchiriano Mount was entrusted to the Bishop of Torino, and by the end of the tenth century, first hermits arrived in the region and they mostly inhabited the Valley of Susa, in the north of the Pirchiriano. They mainly shared their desire for lives in isolation, entirely devoted to God by anchoritism of the Irish monks who had sought out a deserted place in the wilderness to fulfil their mission. Among hermits coming to the Valley of Susa, there was a monk, called Giovanni Vincenzo, who was one of Saint Romuald’s (951-1027) followers and students. The latter was a wandering reformer of Italian monasticism and hermitages, and responsible for the so-called ‘Renaissance of eremitical asceticism’ in Italy. In his mission, he was stimulated by the form of monasticism parallel to the original eremitism once founded in Egypt, which was then transplanted to Hiberno-Scotland (modern-day Ireland and Scotland). From there, such monastic ideas may have spreaded southwards, together with Irish monastic foundations in Europe.

Giovanni Vincenzo lived in his Celle on the Mount Caprasio. According to his hagiography, Giovanni, later canonized as a saint, was born in Besate around the year 955, and he was around 45 years old when he died. The same records testify that he was appointed the fifty-seventh archbishop of Ravenna, under Pope John XIV, in the year 983, with the name of John X. After the accounts, he held the archdiocese between 983 and 998 over the decades, in which the empire was governed by the successive emperors of Otto dynasty. In this period, as evidenced by the history of Ravenna, the Kingdom of Italy was united with that of Germany within the Holy Roman Empire, and Otto, one of the main Emperors of the Holy Roman Empire, set Ravenna as its capital. In 998, Giovanni Vincenzo retired as a hermit on Monte Caprasio in Val di Susa in the natural caves near the town of Celle, where he died around 1000 AD.

On 12 January 1150 his body was transferred to the parish church of Sant’Ambrogio in Turin, currently the church of San Giovanni Vincenzo, which we also had an opportunity to visit on the way back from the Sacra di San Michele. San Giovanni has become the patron saint of the community of Sant’ Ambrogio di Torino. However, some scholars claim there were actually two hermits called Giovanni, whose hagiographies had once merged into one story. They suggest that Giovanni who was actually involved in the legend of Saint Michael had never been the archbishop but a later need for his ennoblement in the eyes of the faithful made him be identified with the apostolic head of Ravenna. Anyway, we may not be allowed to know what was the true story of the saint.

Saint and the Archangel

But what did Saint Giovanni have to do with the Archangel? And what did trigger the process of building the monastery of Saint Michael on the Mount Pirchiriano?

The cult of the Archangel itself had developed within the Judeo-Christian tradition and was brought to life in the East, in places similar in landscape to the sites of sanctuaries along the Archangel’s Axis, namely in isolation and in elevated places. The worship of Saint Michael may have migrated to Italy in the fifth century, as his first recorded apparitions happened in around 450 AD. on Monte Gargano. It is possible that Saint Michael was also worshiped on the Pirchiriano by Longboards, between the sixth and seventh centuries, so long before there was the very first church built in his devotion. The origins of the Abbey are itself shrouded in mystery, and the only source of information on its beginnings is given by two legends, later described in the chronicle of the Monastery. They are both beautifully illustrated in the “Fresco of the Legend”, inside the church of the Sanctuary, which explains the circumstances of the foundations of the Sacra di San Michele.

As the legend goes, Saint Giovanni experienced several apparitions of Saint Michael. It may have happened either when he retired from his function as the archbishop, if we accept that version of his hagiography or yet before he actually became the archbishop. The former is more probable if it is assumed that follow-up constructing works changing the initial church into a Romanesque abbey started between 983 and 987. It is also important to underline that the Saint lived at the verge of the period in which the fear of the end of the world was very strong and frightening. With the new millennium, when the expected end did not come, the construction majestically grew in its structure and significance, as if it was an expression of mankind’s gratefulness sent to the Heavens.

There are no Better Construction Engineers than Angels

The known tradition says that Saint Michael ordered San Giovanni to erect his church on the Mount, as much as it earlier happened in the case of Saint Aubert in Normandy. San Giovanni was less reluctant in fulfilling Saint Michael’s demand than the Saint from Mont Saint Michel, and he started to build the church on the Mount Caprasio, where he lived, and which was famous for praying hermits. The works he started, however, could not be completed because the stones laid during the day (in other version, which is more possible, it was wood) mysteriously disappeared at night. San Giovanni was sure the stones were stolen by some thieves, he stayed awake to guard site of construction. Yet, what he saw at night terrified him greatly, as he discovered that the thieves are actually angels, who transported the stones on another mount nearby, which was the Mount Pirchiriano. Then San Giovanni understood it was Saint Michael’s desire to build his church just there, on the opposite mount. After this miraculous event, the Saint obediently followed the angels to the Pirchiriano, where he set up his new hermitage and continued to build the Archangel’s church.

The first legendary building was actually a very small church, constructed with the help of angels, or according to a different version, entirely built by human hands, whereas the angels had just brought the needed building material and so the miracle of constructing the church was continued by people. Nonetheless, it was consecrated by the angels, or by the Archangel himself, which explains the name of the Abbey as Sacra: consecrated, thus sacred. Very similar legends of angels involved in building sacred sites abound; the most famous is a folk story of the construction of the eleven churches of Lalibela in the twelfth century, in Ethiopia, where angels helped people in their construction, by taking a night shift position. On the other hand, the pseudographical text of the Testament of Solomon reads that there were fallen angels summoned by King to build the Temple, what they did in fear of the power of God’s angels. Accordingly, the mentioned ‘Fresco of the Legend’ shows angels, along doves, who transfer the wood from one mount to the other. There is also depicted the Bishop of Torino, Amizzone, who was coming to the Pirchiriano with the intention of consecrating the church, when he found out it had already been consecrated by the angels.

Ugo di Montboissier’s Penance

The second part of the legend, or the second legend, tells a story about the Abbey’s later founder, namely, the Count Ugo di Montboissier, who once encountered the hermitage of San Giovanni on the Mount Pirchiriano, with a simple church, or rather a complex of three small chapels built onsite dedicated to Sain Michael. The Count had actually been looking for redemption for his sins. The Pope gave him a choice of his penance: either he would go for an exile, which would be for him a religious pilgrimage, or he would give foundations to an abbey. Having known the history of the church on the Pirchiriano, Ugo finally decided to continue building works there on a much greater scale than before.

The Fresco shows him leaving the town of Susa and heading off to the Pirchiriano in order to establish the Monastery. The foundation was entrusted to Benedictine order, different in its organisation and ideals from the previously established Insular monasticism. In the thirteenth century, Saint Michael’s Abbey lived its Golden Age, when its majestic Romanesque silhouette gained additional Gothic additions. Nerveless, the decay of the Abbey came together with the fall of the Benedictines. Consequently, after 600 years the Abbey stayed abandoned, that is to say it till 1836, when it was entrusted to Rosimini Fathers on behalf of the Vatican. In was also then when the bodies of the Savoy family were moved from Torino to the Sacra, giving the beginnings to the “Trail of Princes” (or Nobles). The Rosimini Fathers are still in the Sacra, taking care of the monument as the symbol of the region, and a very important witness to the glorious past, and of Saint Michael’s intercession.

“Antica Mulattiera” and the “Trail of Princes”

Due to the fact that Sacra di San Michele has been a significant destination as the pilgrimage site, there are a few trails around the Mount, which are perfect for doing trekking. I would recommend the mentioned above out-and-back trail, which is called the “Trail of Princes” and starts in the community of Avigliana, yet it can also be done from Mortera, to finally arrive at Mont Pirchiriario. The name “Trail of Princes” was coined after 1836, when a funeral procession brought twenty-four corpses of the nobles of the Savoy family, along the way from the cathedral of Turin to the Abbey on top of the Mount!

The entire “Path of the Princes” takes around 3 hours (9 kilometres) to be completed and is of a moderate level of challenge. When there are less travellers, one can rally enjoy solitude and beauty of the path itself, which amazing panoramic views of Sacra di San Michele and the lakes of Avigliana. Yet, we did not follow that path back that time. Instead, we chose the trail of Antica Mulattiera, which means as much as the ‘Mule Track’. It is the most ancient forest path that curves up in zig-zags along the way from Sant’ Ambrogio to Sacra di San Michele, and back; it has been used as a traditional way of approaching the Abbey for at least a thousand years. It is quite steep and rugged, and hence demands from visitors to be in a better physical shape.

Climbing down towards Saint’ Ambrogio

We slowly descended worn-away cobblestones of the road, moving forward the town below, and catching glimpses of the towering Abbey behind us. For those, who are just making their way up with great effort, its silhouette must be a real promise of rest, and so also a desirable destination. While climbing down, we encountered there 15 stone crosses at the windings of the road, each representing one of the Stations of the Cross.

It allows us to travel back in time and join in mind medieval believers, where a pilgrimage was an integral part of Christian life, even though modern pilgrims changed today in tourists, looking for pleasure in hiking, inspiring views and food tested on the trail, and much less in Christian religion and its angels. You can still be on a spiritual search for your destiny, and enter, in the way a medieval pilgrim did it, into the grandeur of nature that eventually explodes in manmade (and angel made) complex of Saint Michael’s Abbey. Then you can observe how its architecture merges into the tissue of natural landscape. At the final section of the path, we additionally encountered wooden characters, as if taken straight from the Land of Oz.

Before us, the gate to Saint’ Ambrogio opened, with its church just below the steep alpine slope of the Mount and the outline of the Sanctuario, high above, crowning its top. Such a beuty of architecture and nature inspires feelings of transcendence and creates a continuation of the legend also in modern literature. In the imagination of an Italian debuting writer, Umberto Eco, Sacra di San Michele became in 1980 a perfect setting of a mysterious murder within the walls of Benedictine Abbey. Although it is only a literary fiction, the Abbey itslef stimulates an atmosphere of mystery; its large and steep stairway is called the Stairway of the Dead, where a few tombs with skeletons of Benedictine monks were found in large niches, and each of them had his own history. Yet, “the silence of the centuries dominates everything” (Traverso, 1992:11).

By Joanna
Faculties of English Philology, History of Art and Archaeology.
University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland;
Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw, Poland;
University College Dublin, Ireland.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

All Trails, 2023. ‘Sentiero dei Principi’ (2023), in alltrails.com. Accessed on 28th January, 2023. Available at <https://bit.ly/3HynyrR>.

Kosloski, P., 2020. ‘How St. Michael helped build Sacra di San Michele, in Comics’, in ‘Voyage’. Accessed on 28th January, 2023. Available at <https://bit.ly/3kI2dTL>.

Rogano, F., 2017. ‘The legend of Saint Michael’s Abbey – Sacra di San Michele in Piemonte’, in Emadion. Accessed on 28th January, 2023. Available at <https://bit.ly/3H67mfO>.

Top Most Beautiful Places in Europe, 2019. ‘Val de Susa’, in ‘Sacra di San Michele’, in themostbeautifulplacesineurope. Accessed on 28th January, 2023. Available at <https://bit.ly/3Hdw91R>.

Top Most Beautiful Places in Europe, 2019. ‘Sacra di San Michele, Italy’, in ‘Sacra di San Michele’, in themostbeautifulplacesineurope. Accessed on 28th January, 2023. Available at <https://bit.ly/3Hdw91R>.

Traverso, O., 1992. Sacra di San Michele. Monumento Symbolo del Piemonte. Genova: Edizioni D’Arte.

ASIA, EUROPE, FRANCE, GREECE, IRELAND, ISRAEL, ITALY

Following ‘Via Michaelica’, from the Mounts to the Caves

January 14, 2023 Joanna Pyrgies Leave a comment

As an archaeologist, currently conducting PhD research on early Christianity, I have embarked on an expedition, or rather a pilgrimage, that takes me in most of its complexity with the Seven Archangels, and the seven sanctuaries-mounts dedicated to Saint Michael. They were built along the ley line, stretching southwards from northern Europe, with the Skellig Michael jutting from the Atlantic Ocean, to Mount Carmel In Israel, as its final point. But is it just a point or a cluster of sites around this holy place, important to both, Jews and Christians? (see: Sacred Geography Enclosed in the Idea of the Apollo-Saint Michael Axis).

Till October, 2022, I had visited the three sanctuaries in the north of Europe. Yet, when I started my exciting journey in 2006, I barely associated the sites with the Archangel; at that time, I was not aware of the fact they are all placed on the imaginative line running 60 degrees 11 minutes west of north or that they are actually seven in number, all aligned southwards on the extension of the axis. In 2008, during my short visit in Cornwall, I learnt there is much more to the story I had known so far. For some, saying that a book can change your life is a cliché … Maybe … But in my life I have read at least two books that turned out to be the bestsellers of my life, giving me proper guidelines on how to live with passion. Having encountered one of them in a small bookshop in a town of Tintagel, my perception of legendary places, shaped by the faith of pagans and Christians alike, has greatly grown; it has triggered my imagination and challenged me to follow a Christian pilgrimage path that was firstly marked by Saint Michael’s steps.

Together with my travel companions, in October, 2022, I am heading off to two other Archangel’s sanctuaries in Italy. First, I will climb up the Mount Pirchiriano, beautifully situated in Piedmont of north-western Italy, where the silhouette of Sacra di San Michele is shouting in between the peaks of the Alpes. And then I will travel southwards to not less prepossessing Monte Sant’Angelo on Gargano Peninsula, surrounded by the navy-blue waters of the Adriatic Sea. Thought-provoking is a binding connection between those two sites and Mont Saint Michel in France, of which Santuario di San Michele Arcangelo on Gargano is the only one not consecrated with a human hand.

Visual reports online from my expeditions will be available on my website. Later on, they will be richly supplemented with exhaustive written descriptions. Meantime, I invite you on a pilgrimage along Saint Michael’s Axis.

January, 15th, 2023: More than two months have passed since my last trip to the Sanctuaries of Saint Michael. In October, 2022, I managed to visit the fourth of them, Sacra di San Michele (see :The Middle-Way Point of the Angels’ Battle in the Piedmont Region), and in November, 2022, the fifth one, which is the famous Monte Sant’Angelo on the Gargano peninsula. The time turned out to be extremely intense, because apart from going to Italy and studying along St. Michael’s Line, I also visited Christian sacral places in Lebanon and Egypt. Many of them are also related to angels’ activities, not only to Saint Michael, but also to his other six archangel companions. In Lebanon, I had the opportunity to travel through the sacred Valley of Quadisha, where Saint Michael is celebrated as much as Saint Elijah. I also tried sweet wine, made from grapes grown on Mount Hermon – the same one that was to witness the descent of fallen angels to earth… In Egypt, I visited the meeting place of Saints Paul and Anthony. It reminded me of the scene from the Irish High Crosses, showing two Saints with a raven flying with bread over their heads. I climbed up more than 1,000 steps to the cave of Saint Anthony, and after entering the sanctuary of the monastery, I got lost in thinking about the scenes of saints, angels and Majestas Domini.

The five first steps on ‘Via Michaelica’, while travelling southwards: Skellig Michael (2015), Saint Michael’s Mount (2008), Mont Saint Michel (2005, 2008), Sacra di San Michele (2022), an Santuario di San Michele Arcangelo on Monte Saint’ Angelo (2022). The best way of experiencing the pilgrimage is to travel with your close freinds. Photo: the illustration of Saint Michael’s Sword with all the seven points; the board can be seen inside the Church of Saint Michael at Sacra di San Michele, in Piedmont. Music: The Army of Angels.

All the thoughts come together in one piece that adds new chapters to the work on Saint Michael’s legendary Sword, (and to my PhD).

29th September, 2023: I continued my journey and I visited the Monastery of Saint Michael on Gargano Peninsula on the Feast of the Three Archangels, precisely on 29th September. In this place, the feast is mostly dedicated to the Archangel Michael. We arrived there with another friend and a passionate photographer, Elizabeth (Ela), two days before the feast. In the evening of 27th September, in the narrow streets of this small white town, we encountered a parade or a procession of people dressed in colourful period costumes to reflect the hagiography of Saint Michael and his appearance in the cave of Gargano, in the fifth century (see: Living Retrospectives of Saint Michael’s Apparitions on Monte Gargano). It was a perfect time to visit the place. You can take part in a local church fair that is one of the greatest events in life of Monte Sant’ Angelo. It is a unique opportunity to observe the local ritual that is partly of Western and partly of Oriental origins. At the same time I started to wonder how the members of the Greek Orthodox Church celebrate Michaelmas on Symi Island that falls on 8th November. This is another project but for 2024 …

June, 2024: Dr. Stanley Williams, filmmaker, historian, and author, released his documentary about Saint Michael’s Line. It is now ready to watch! I was happy about it not only because it is over 2-hour highly informative documentary filled with significant and valuable information and theories about the Axis but also because I have added my own small contribution to its creation thanks to Stan’s invitation to his project in 2022.

ANGEL QUEST: In Search of St. Michael’s Sword. The documentary produced and commented by Dr. Stanley D. Williams. I am honoured I could take part in it.

While Saint Michael is still chasing and hunting for demons, along the Line from north to south, I am coming back to my studies … I hope you will enjoy new articles that will soon appear on the website.

Featured image: Bronze statue of Archangel Michael, Castel Sant’Angelo, Rome. Photo by Wuestenigel (2017). Source: Catholic Herald (2017).

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Photo: Bronze statue of Archangel Michael, Castel Sant’Angelo, Rome. Photo by Wuestenigel (2017). In: Catholic Herald (2017). Available at <https://bit.ly/2jhwxSd>. [Accessed 15^th April, 2018].

EUROPE, SPAIN

Shapes of the Architectural Oasis of Al-Andalus

January 7, 2023 Joanna Pyrgies Leave a comment

‘It is said that whoever has not seen Granada has seen nothing’, said our guide breathing in the air coming from the river. It was filled with the magic of spices and the scent of flowers.

Granada is one of the most popular cities in the Andalusia region. It stretches along the Genil River, right at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountain range. This picturesquely situated town is famous for its unique architecture from the One Thousand and One Nights and well-preserved monuments that simply took my breath away.

We left the river behind and slipped through the narrow streets of the souk among the stalls with pyramids of spices and colorful fabrics. It was already our second week we were spending among the treasures of southern Spain with its strong oriental character singing in one voice with the Christian spirit and the bells of Catholic churches and cathedrals; Seville, Cordoba and finally Granada have shared with me their secrets.

Reconquest

Royal Alcázar of Seville. Copyright©Archaeotravel.

In January, 1492, the last of the Muslim rulers in Spain surrendered in Granada to the Catholic monarchs, Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile. To commemorate the great triumph of Reconquest, a silver Cross and a pennant of Saint James were erected at the top of one of the towers of the fortified palace of Alhambra. Catholic kings placed a pomegranate in their coat of arms, probably without expecting its seeds would sprout and give wonderful fruits of art over time.

Mudejar Style and its Creators

One of the artistic expressions was the mudejar style. It had grown out of the roots of Moorish art but gained a unique character from combining the latter with the Christian tradition. Despite the victory of the Reconquest, this unique style did not disappear from the art of Spain converted back to Christianity, but it was further continued by more or less Christianized Moorish artists and craftsmen who remained in the lands of Spain to serve Catholic rulers. They were called mudajjan, or people who were allowed to stay, and hence the Spanish term mudejar, which refers to the products of art and their creators.

According to the terminological Dictionary of Fine Arts, mudejar is a style in the architecture and decoration of Spain, developing from the eighth to the seventeenth century AD. Its development is noted especially in the end of the Moorish reign, that is from the fourteenth to the fifteenth century. The style was definitely closer to the Gothic than to the Italian Renaissance, with which it quarreled.

Still the style of mudejar itself and contemporary European style influenced the character of the Spanish Renaissance and then Baroque. The dominant feature of mudejar is the astonishingly rich decoration made in stucco, especially visible in vaults carved in wood and covered with polychrome, horseshoe arches, azulejos and muqarnas (mocárabe) – a motif that adorns column heads, or the so-called stalactite vaults. A particularly important feature of the mudejar style is a colorful or gilded ornament of oriental origin – arabesque or moresque, Arabic inscriptions, and stylized figurative and animalistic motifs, characterized by a much greater freedom of composition in comparison with the art of Islam developing outside the Iberian Peninsula. The projecting of mudejar-style sacral buildings usually is of the western type, while the secular architecture is dominated by rather oriental patterns. In addition to architecture, the style was also mastered by craftsmanship, which played a leading role in the development of the Moorish art. In the mudejar style, for example, the rich Alcazar decoration in Seville was made.

Due to the strongly established influence of Islam in Andalusia, the Moorish art has found its place and expression in many products of architecture and the craft of Christian Spain. It was also present in literature and music, and what is more, it became one of the most important stages of the development of art on the Iberian Peninsula. After the Moors retreated, they left behind silent witnesses of their domination in Spain, and the splendour of Islamic culture and art. Those were remains of secular and sacral Moorish architecture – castles, palaces and mosques.

A large number of architectural works of this style have grown into a Christian structure imposed on the older. More often, however, architectural works were dismantled to become a source of valuable building material for new creations of the Christian architecture; Moorish columns, capitals and precious marble have become elements of a new, alien to them constructions. Islamic defensive castles were taken over by Catholic kings. In the process they were gradually destroyed, changing into ruins but preserving their picturesque remains for the landscape of today’s Andalusia.

Among the secular architecture left by the Moors the most beautiful is the Alhambra, a palace rising from the thirteenth to the fourteenth century on a hilltop, overlooking the majestic city of Granada, and challenging the snow-capped mountains of the Sierra Nevada. The Alhambra is today the most exquisite example of the genius of secular architecture and artistry created by the Moors. The latter were Muslims who invaded the Iberian Peninsula from North Africa at the beginning of the eighth century. Under the pressure of the Muslim invaders, Visigothic Spain had failed and surrendered. The green banner fluttered in Spain over the following centuries until the Reconquista. Without a doubt, it was a period when one of the most outstanding chapters of art was written in the background of world art. The uniqueness of the Moorish art in Andalusia – the Arabic Al-Andalus – became possible because of the relative integration of Islamic, Christian and Jewish cultures that sought to live side by side in peace and symbiosis, complementing each other to some extent.

Similar conditions ensured rapid development of human spiritual needs: literature, music, crafts, and architecture. On the other hand, the closeness of monotheistic religions, their values and artistic achievements, as well as the background of the culture of the Visigoths, was not without significance for the shape of art sprouting in the areas of Andalusia at that time.

More oriental palace than the buildings preserved in the very Orient

The Alhambra Palace is a kind of labyrinth of shady courtyards, halls, magnificent arcades, marble columns, fountains and ponds.

The walls of the majestic building are covered with intricate patterns similar in lightness to intricate laces and shimmering in the colours of the rainbow with glass tiles. The palace’s beauty is also glorified by poets, lyricists and singers, such as Loreena McKennitt.

I’d long intended to make a pilgrimage to Spain and to visit the palace called Alhambra. [And] I finally travelled there. I discovered the Moorish towers built by a thirteenth century Muslim sultan, interior courtyards with pools of water, elegant pillars and intricate tracery. All designed to duplicate famous descriptions of paradise within Islamic poetry. For centuries it served as an oasis for nomads and travellers, a meeting place for cultures and traditions, a crossroads for religions, where Muslims, Jews and Christians once coexisted in harmony. It’s a place where darkness gives a way to life, every stone has heard a 1001 secrets and where distance feels so near. It’s a place of infinite beauty, a Mystic’s dream, Alhambra.
Loreena McKennitt, Nights from the Alhambra.

After J. Pijaon the Alhambra is today a more oriental palace than the buildings preserved in the very Orient. An extremely important decorative element of Moorish art and the palace’s decoration in Granada are the so-called azulejos, which are ceramic tiles covered with enamel used for lining the walls both inside and outside, decorating the exterior of the building.

This art was introduced by Arabs from the Iberian Peninsula in the fourteenth century, and after the Moors were driven out of Spain it was still cultivated by Christian artists; in the seventeenth century, mainly in Seville, but also in neighboring Portugal, from where it reached the New World, and they have decorated the facades of the buildings in the capital of Brasilia. At the beginning of its history, azulejos, the term from Arabic az-zulayj, which means a small stone, were monochromatic, mainly blue. Hence it is not without significance that azul means blue in both Spanish and Portuguese. Over time, however, the tiles began to adorn strongly geometric, multi-colored floral motifs, but also depictions of military or humorous scenes.

Ronda (Andalusia), where the Puente Nuevo bridge is spanning a very deep gorge. Copyright©Archaeotravel.

Apart from azulejos, the most captivating in the Islamic art are the decorations in the form of stalactites forming the shell of the Alhambra palace’s vaults, which seem to explode like gigantic starfish. The effect of vibrating stalactite forms is present especially in the decoration of the dome in the Abencerrag Hall and the dome in the Hall of the Two Sisters in the Alhambra. Made of stucco elements and embedded in wooden frames, the vaults resemble a diagonally cut honeycomb. As in many other examples of Arab art, the motif of stalactite brings to mind the creations of nature and their glorification in art. The Arabs were once a nomadic people, dependent on nature and sensitive to its beauty and life, which flourished in oases in a barren desert. Organic elements, like water and greenery, are also an inseparable element of the architecture of bands such as Alkazar and Alhambra.

After the Reconquest, the mosque, the so-called mezquita in Spain, was most often turned into a church. The place of mihrab – a niche in one of the walls of the books, which went towards Mecca, the holy city of Muslims, was replaced with a Christian altar. According to the principles of Christian art, the altar was to be orientated towards the east. In Spain, the mezquita wall with the mihrab were mostly oriented southeastwards. Hence the unique orientation of Christian altars in the churches of Andalusia, adapted to the location of earlier Moorish constructions and their purposes. A similar procedure was used in the case of a minaret – a slender tower from which the faithful were called to pray. From then on it served as a belfry, as it was applied, for example, in the Cathedral of Seville.

Sacral Hybrid of Styles

The most important and undoubtedly the most famous example of the Moorish church building is the Mezquita – the Great Mosque of Cordoba.

After Spain was overtaken from the Morish hands, the Mezquita was clasped within the Catholic Cathedral. The whole structure is a sacral hybrid of styles arising from the needs of two religions, which, however, have not succumbed to any of them. Thanks to this, the building is so unique in its form. On the one hand, the elements of Muslim and Christian structures seem to quarrel and push away each other, on the other, the duality of styles argues that there are artistic currents prevailing in both sacred arts, stemming from the values of both religions.

Mezquita – the Great Mosque of Cordoba. After Spain was overtaken from the Morish hands, the Mezquita was clasped within the Catholic Cathedral. Copyright©Archaeotravel

The choir of the Christian cathedral with figural representations of angels and saints, made in the Spanish Renaissance style – plateresco, known as the goldsmith style, is in conflict with the interiors of the Mezquita. Sometimes the contrast between the Muslim and Christian understanding of the sacred is difficult to withstand, and even shocking. In the Christian temple the mihrab has been preserved and so it creates the sacred space together with the Christian altar, to which the main nave of the temple created by the Christians leads. Despite its importance, the building of the Gothic cathedral of Crdoba is visible only from the bird’s eye view, somewhat embedded in the center of the whole massive structure of the Mezquita, with the tower of the minaret-belfry rising in the north.

To raise the place of prayers in Cordoba, the Muslim invaders used half of the Visigothic church of St. Wincenty, built on the site of the pagan temple dedicated to Janus. The basic element of the Mezquita became the ancient and Visigothic columns, acquired on the spot or imported. Jan Białostocki compares the layout of a large number of columns forming nineteen aisles to “an unbounded stone forest, as if the people living in the desert shaped their world into a shady oasis.” Because of the original purpose of the building, the columns do not set the direction towards the current sanctuary, as it is intended in Christian basilicas. The lack of a central axis, also visible in the façade of the temple, actually evokes the impression that one has just entered the interior of the dense forest of columns that are diverging in various directions. Among the low trunks of columns deprived of bases there is a twilight.

During the Moorish times, there were small lights flickering around, now one entering from the outside is suddenly plunged into the darkness of the temple dedicated to the God being called the Light. The columns combine double, two-colored bows and the more one approaches the mihrab, the more their forms seem intricate. The spaces defined by the strips of running columns hide vaults in the form of domes in the shape of an eight-leaf rosette or a half-cut orange.

The dominant element of the Mezquita in Cordoba is the horseshoe arch. This is the main element of the local mihrab. Probably this shape of the arch already existed in the territory of Spain during the Visigothic times. The Arabs took over many elements from the art of conquered cultures of Asia and Africa. In the case of Spain, it was the artistic style created by the Visigoths, assimilated and in time adapted to the needs of the invaders. While the first Arabian buildings in Egypt are characterized mainly by the form of a pointed or ogival arch, in Spain dominates the horseshoe arch, with a clearly rounded shape. This bow decorates the Mezquita in Cordoba. It was only from Andalusia that a similar form of the arch spread further in North Africa and was commonly used in Moroccan, Algerian and Tunisian buildings.

Lost Paradise

The exuberance, elegance and decorative culture brought by Arabs in Spain testify to the high level of their contemporary intellectual and artistic life. As such the Moorish Andalusia was an enclave of light and a real phenomenon in the history of European art. For the defeated Moors, it became a symbol of the lost Paradise.