Overview

Christian-Islamic encounters through religious arts, architecture, and material culture in the medieval era The coexistence of Christianity and Islam in the medieval Mediterranean led to an interchange of knowledge in architecture and material culture that went well beyond religious and geographical boundaries. The use of Islamic objects in Christian contexts, the conversion of churches into mosques, and the mobility of craftsmen are only some manifestations of this process. From crosses found in mosques to European-Christian coins with pseudo-shahada inscriptions, medieval material culture is rich with visual evidence of the two faiths intermingling in both individual objects and monuments. In this volume, thirteen international scholars explore various aspects of pan-Mediterranean Christian-Islamic encounters in material culture and art, from textiles to precious oils, and from metalwork to ceramics, covering most of the Mediterranean, as well as parts of its extended hinterland, from Spain and Italy to Egypt and Georgia. Within this frame, one of the most relevant, yet underexplored lines of investigation is that of the ""aesthetic space,"" the notion that aesthetic pleasure transcends boundaries, paving the way to a cross-religious experience and appreciation. ""Indeed, God is beautiful, and He loves beauty,"" as mentioned in a Hadith narration, a universal cry of visual beauty that resonates with all cultures and civilizations. Contributors: Paschalis Androudis Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece Faruk Bilici Inalco, Paris, France Maria Bormpoudaki Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports, Piraeus, Greece Sami Luigi De Giosa University of Sharjah, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates Helene Fragaki University of Augsburg, Augsburg, Germany Hani Hamza Independent scholar, Cairo, Egypt Ana Cabrera Lafuente Instituto de Turismo de Espana (Turespana/Tourspain), Madrid, Spain Alison Ohta Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, London, United Kingdom Richard Piran McClary University of York, York, United Kingdom Nino Simonishvili Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, Tbilisi, Georgia Nikolaos Vryzidis Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece Arielle Winnik Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, United States

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9781649031877

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""There are not many essay volumes where the editors have consciously adopted a Mediterraneanist approach with such fruitful results."" —Mariam Rosser-Owen, Victoria and Albert Museum, from the preface “An original and valuable addition to the growing number of studies on Christian-Islamic artistic interactions in the greater Mediterranean. By the breadth, both geographical and in terms of the variety of works and media covered, and the depth accorded the case studies in each chapter, it sheds new and different light on reasons for them.”—Scott Redford, SOAS University of London ""The voices of authors in this volume can be added to an expanding chorus of scholars who orientate their output towards what has been termed 'The Global Turn’, the effort to make global processes manifest at multiple levels—transnational, regional, national, and local—all of which are interconnected and mutually constitutive; essays encompass ‘microhistorical’ case studies across the media of architecture, sculpture, pottery, metalwork, textiles, book binding, and even cosmetics, painting a ‘macrohistorical’ picture that emphasises connections across the Mediterranean world."" —George Manginis, Benaki Museum

Author Information

Sami Luigi De Giosa is assistant professor at the College of Fine Arts and Design, University of Sharjah. His most recent publication is The Crosses of the Sultan. He has curated exhibitions on Islamic art around the world including Hajj: Memories of a Journey Exhibition at the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi. Nikolaos Vryzidis is post-doctoral research fellow in the Department of History and Archaeology at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. His latest publications include the article ""Between Three Worlds: The ‘Veneto-Saracenic’ Candleholder of Docheiariou Monastery"" for which he has received the N. Drandakis Prize by the Christian Archaeological Society.

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