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5. the Origin of the Patios and Gardens of the Islamic Period In CHAPfERFIVE The Origin of the Patios and Gardens of the Islamic Period in Sp,ain and Portugal. /lidio A. De Araujo 'Both the art and the architecture of the origins of the patios, gardens and gardens are strongly influenced by the "leisure resorts" of the Islamic period ecological conditions prevailing in the in the Peninsula. country where they are practised. lst to the 4th centuries From the 8th century onwards it so In the ruins of Conimbriga a number happened that the area covered by Is- of impluvia and peristyles have So for lamic expansion closely coincided with been discovered which I consider to be the ecological areatraditionally known of great importance for an understand- as "Mediterranean", and that within the ing of the subsequent evolution of the Iberian Peninsula Ithe two areas were art of the patio in the lberian Peninsula. exactly coextensive. It is for this reason In thesç peristyles water -in ponds or that the effects of Islamic and of Medi- tanks -plays as essential a part as the terranean influence are so frequently flower-beds in the composition of the confused, bath with each other and with whole, and sculpture does not seem to those of the Roman culture lying below have bad the same importance as else- surface-level in the countries of the where-at Pompeii, for instance. area. At Conimbriga and Emerita Augusta Portugal occupies the piece of land we begin to find the main features we which was both the Lusitania of Roman shall be meeting again in the patios of times and the Garbe of Arabian Anda- the Islamic period in the Mediterranean lusia, and consequently has the advan- area, namely, ponds, flower-beds, wa- tage of the cultural experience of the ter-jets and narrow irrigation canaIs. two civilizations. It further lies at the Particularly striking is the extent to junction of the two ecological zones of which two peristyles at Conimbriga Europe, the Mediterranean area and resemble the "patio de la Machuca" and that of the North Atlantic. We are thus one of the Partal patios in the Alhambra in a privileged position to study the at Granada (See Nos. III and V of the convergence of the different influençes seven patios shown on the plan of affecting our gardens, though unfortu- Conimbriga in Fig. I) nately, since the traces it has left have Sth to the 7th centuries been inadequately studied as yet, our The disintegration of the Roman archaeological and historical informa- Empire in the fifth century as a result of tion on the presence of Islam in our the migrations of German, Slavic and country is insufficient. I will neverthe- Mongol tribes bad disastrous effects on less try to give you a persona! view of the urban civilization with bad spread :,. 63 lidio A. De Araujo throughout the provinces. The sack of actly into those two distinct ecological Bracara, Aeminium, Conimbriga and regions we are concemed with. I other Lusitanian towns by the Swabians, At the close of the most active period and of the rest of the Peninsula by the of the migrations we find the Swabi~s Alans and Vandals, led to their almost established in Lusitania with their capi- complete abandonment, while, many tal at Bracara, and the Visigoths, with other towns were ruined owing to the theirs at Toledo, occpying all the rest of disorganizationof inter-regional com- the peninsula, with the exception of the merce, with the result that the inhabit- southemmost part which for sevendec- ants ofthese and other provinces re- ades was to remain a province of the verted to an agricultural and autarkic Byzantine Empire. During the 6th cen- economy. tury the Visigothic Monarchy succeeded Another result of what the Romans in dominating the entire Peninsula. referred to as the "barbarian invasions" Fr~m the works of the 6th and 7th was the separation of the Roman world, centuries which have corne down to us, both geographically and ecologically, whether from Swabian or Visigoth ter- into two completely different spheres ritory , it may be seen that architects whose cpltural development was to be- continued to use the techniques and corne mutually independent. There follow the ru les adopted by their Ro- were, on the one hand, the sunlit coun- man predecessors, though the exist- tries of the Mediterranean sea board ence of cultural contacts with the rest of with their warm and dry climate which, the Mediterranean world is definitely under the political hegemony first of proved. A good illustration is the small Byzantium and then of the Arab church of San Frutuoso near Braga in Caliphates, produced an art which was Portugal (6th century), while the a development of the Roman. Mean- churches of Lourosa and Balsêmao as while that seething cauldron which weIl as those of Banhos and Bande in was Central Europe continued, in its Spain, with their generalized use of the evergrecn surroundings and its wet and round horseshoe arch and the exuber- misty climate, to turn out an art derived ant decoration of an architectural fea- equally from that of the Roman Em- ture here and there, would seem to pire; but here, in isolation from the represent a local development of Ro- culture of the Mediterranean world and man architecture; and the same might under the influence of the Christian have been true of the patios of the faith, the pattern of development was period. very different. 8th to the lOth centuries Belonging, as it did geographicully At the beginning of the 8th century , to both worlds, the peninsuJa was able when the Mediterranean areas of the to share in thedevelopment of each of Peninsula were occupied by Arab and the two parallel trends. Indeed, the bar- Berber Muslim warriors, the central rier fonned by the Guadarrama, Gredos mountain barrier became a political and Ga~mQPntains in Spain and by the frontier. Whereas to the south, stretch- Estrella, Buçaco and Buarcos moun- '~' ing across into North Africa, the !I tains in Portugal, and ruQming south- Caliphate of Cordoba remained " westftom the rrrenees to the Cape of unrestrictedly open to cultural contacts Mondego, separates the country ex- with other Mediterranean peoples,some I 64 The Origin of the Patios and Gardens of the Islamic Period in Spain and Portugal. of the Christian chiefs to the north, in nonns handed down from the Visigoth closer touch with the world Iying on the period had remained almost unchanged. northern shores of the Atlantic, strove The planting oftrees in the patio is said to take advantage of any occasional to be a peculiarity of the mosques of weakness on the part of these usually Andalusia, while the arrangement by powerful southern neighbours, in order which the water which is to irrigate the to enlarge their own princedoms. trees and cool the atmosphere runs The geographical and political sepa- through a network of artificial canaIs is ration into two distinct worlds meant already to be seenin a Roman peristyle that the art of the Iberian Peninsula of at Emerita Augusta (The technique for the 8th to the late 15th centuries was to channelling the waterwas subsequently come out of two separatemelting pots. widelyusedin Portuguesegardens down ln the Mediterraneal!1area, where Islam to the 17th century). was the dominant reRigion,artistic crea- It was in the town of Madina-al- tion took the form of exuberant decora- Zahra, built, with its several tion designed for mosques, palaces and palaces,over a period which began in schools; whereas in the north-westerly 936 A.D. and was destroyed in 1010 area towards the Atlantic where the A.D., that the local artists had their Christian religion had been almost uni- great opportunity as garden-designers; versally adopted it was the cathedrals in the vicinity of one of the great paI- and convent or monastery churches aces they laid out a large garden in- which were the great artistic monu- tended both for the growing of fruit and ments. So that while the patios to be vegetables and as a place for leisure. Its found in the north are almost exclu- .architecture reveals the pennanency of sively the stereotyped cloisters of ca- that trend in the direction of exuberant thedrals and monasceries,in the south decorati<?nwhich, already visible in the the palaces (" alcâçovas"), mosques and pre-Roman towns, had further devel- medersasoffer a greater degree of varï- oped during the Visigoth period, while ety in this respect. Further, whereas the in the gardens themselves naturaI ad- Visigoth towns occupied either by justment to ecological conditions is Arab tribes from the Yemen, Syria, exemplified in the system of irrigation Palestine or Egypt, or else by Berber or by overflow, involving flat ground and Moorish tribes from Africa, continued damming at higher points. We can aIso to develop and progr,esspeacefully, the find unquestionable proof of artistic few towns existing in the north were, on influence from the Orient, especially in the contrary , frequently sacked the use of decorative details brought by When the court of the independent the Arabs from Iran from 960 onwards. emirate of Andalusia was set up in Such are the multifoil arch, the pointed Cordoba in 756 A.D. , a further opportu- or ogival arch (which in Spain was t1le nity arose for the population of the forerunner of the Moorish horseshoe), Peninsula to demonstrate its already stalactites and "azulejos" (coloured proven creative talent. The mosque of tiles ), and, in gardens, crucifonn cen- Cordoba, built between 785 A.D. and tral watertanks (Garden pavilions were 790 A.D., still shows-as the one in already known in Roman times.).
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