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522 SARACENIC ARCHITECTURE f Afii Ul. CHAPTER III. SPAIN. CONTENTS. Introductory remarks — Mosque at Cordoba — Palace at Zahra — Churches of Sta. Maria and Cristo de la Luz at Toledo — Giralda at Seville — Palace of the Alcazar — The Alhambra — Sicily. CHRONOLOGY. DATES. Moors invade Spain a.u. 711 Abd el-Kalimau connnences Mosque at Cordoba 786 El Mansour enlarges Mosque at Cordoba S76 Caliph Hakeein rebuilds sanctuary at Oordoba 965 DATES. Alcazar and (Jiralda at Seville (about) a.d. 1200 Mohammed ben Alhanimar commences Alhambra 1248 Abou abd Allah, builder of Court of Lions, begins to reign 1325 Christian Conquest of Granada .... 1492 FOR the present it is feared we must forego any attempt to trace the steps by which the Saracenic styles reached Spain, or to determine why the forms it assumed when we first meet it there are so different from those we find elsewhere. As a style it is inferior to many other forms of Saracenic art. It has not the purity of form and elegance of detail attained in Egypt, nor the perfection in coloring which characterizes the style of Persia, while it is certainly inferior both in elegance and richness to that of India. Still it is to us perhaps the most interesting of the whole, not only because of its proximity to our own shores, and our consequent greater familiarity with it, but because history, poetry, and painting have all combined to heighten its merits and fix its forms on our minds. Few are unacquainted with the brilliant daring of the handful of adventurers M^ho, in the 8th century, subjugated Spain and nearly conquered Europe, and fewer still have listened without emotion to the sad tale of their expulsion eight centuries afterwards. Much of the poetry and romance of the Middle Ages owes its existence to the struggles . between the Christian and the Paynim knights ; and in modern times poets, painters, and architects have all lingered and expatiated on the beauties of the Alhambra, or dwelt in delight on the mysterious magnificence of the mosque at Cordoba. Indeed, no greater compli- ment could be paid to this style than that conveyed by the fact that, till within the last few years, not one work of any im|)ortance has been devoted to the Christian antiquities of Spain, while even England