Antonio Urquízar-Herrera 'The Islamic monuments in Spain as historical devices (16th to 18th centuries)'

Talk details:

What history of Spain could be written using the Islamic monuments of Al-Andalus as sources? Were the Mosque of Córdoba, the Giralda of Seville, and the Alhambra of Granada part of the nation's history? What interest could an Arabic inscription or a decorative fragment of ataurique have at a time when admiration for classical ruins and relics of the martyrs was prevalent? These questions directly engaged some of the most prominent Iberian historians of the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. The controversy took shape during the Alpujarras Rebellion, reached its zenith during the expulsion of the Moriscos, and remained active throughout the Early Modern Period. On one hand, there was a need to explain these remnants of the past within a general framework that acknowledged the importance of historical monuments while seeking to establish cultural and religious homogeneity in conflict with the recent history of the Iberian Islam. On the other hand, it was understood that the monumental power of these buildings could be of some use in the historical debates about the origin of Spain and its ecclesiastical history, even competing with the ruins of ancient Rome. In this overall context, the lecture will address issues such as tensions between transformation, preservation, interpretation, and appropriation of monuments in a cross-cultural context, historical forgeries, techniques of describing and analyzing buildings as historical sources, the relationship of monuments to the religious conflicts of the time and to the Morisco population, the impact of buildings on city life, and the doubts of historians when confronted with writing about controversial matters.

Speaker biography:

Antonio Urquízar-Herrera (Córdoba, Spain, 1973) is Full Professor at the History of Art Department of the UNED, Madrid. He has published several works on Early Modern Art in Spain, among them Admiration and Awe. Morisco Buildings and Identity Negotiations in Early Modern Spanish Historiography (Oxford University Press, 2017), and Coleccionismo y nobleza. Signos de distinción social en la Andalucía del Renacimiento (Marcial Pons, 2007). He is PI of the research group Arte y Pensamiento (https://artepensamiento.hypotheses.org/) and has been Chair to the COST Action CA18129 IS-LE Islamic Legacy: Narratives East, West, South, North of the Mediterranean (1350-1750), that has brought together more than 250 researchers coming for 35 European and Mediterranean countries (https://is-le.uned.es/). For further information, see: https://uned.academia.edu/AntonioUrqu%C3%ADzarHerrera

The event is part of the Research Seminar Series organised by Durham University's Zurbarán Centre with the ARTES Iberian and Latin American Visual Culture Group in collaboration with the Instituto Cervantes and the Embassy of Spain in London.

The series provides an open forum for engaging with innovative research and exhibition projects relating to the visual arts in the Hispanic world.

This event is in person at the  Instituto Cervantes,15-19 Devereux Court, London, WC2R 3JJ and online. See zoom link below:

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