Marble Past, Monumental Present: Building With Antiquities in the Mediaeval Mediterranean (The Medieval Mediterranean)

653 Pages·2008·4.99 MB·English

by  Michael Greenhalgh

Marble Past, Monumental Present
The Medieval Mediterranean
Peoples, Economies and Cultures, 400–1500
Managing Editor
Hugh Kennedy
SOAS, London
Editors
Paul Magdalino, St. Andrews
David Abulafi a, Cambridge
Benjamin Arbel, Tel Aviv
Larry J. Simon, Western Michigan University
Olivia Remie Constable, Notre Dame
VOLUME 80
Marble Past,
Monumental Present
Building with Antiquities in the
Mediaeval Mediterranean
By
Michael Greenhalgh
LEIDEN • BOSTON
2009
Cover illustration: Mihrab, Madrasa Al-Firdaws, Aleppo, 1235–41. This miracle of
marquetry technique re-uses white marble, red porphyry and green diorite, jigsawed
in depth. Conceivably the yellow stone has been cut from antique columns (such as
those in the courtyard?).
Photograph by the author.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication-Data
Greenhalgh, Michael.
Marble past, monumental present : building with antiquities in the mediaeval
Mediterranean / by Michael Greenhalgh.
p. cm. — (The medieval Mediterranean ; v. 80)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-90-04-17083-4 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Marble buildings—
Mediterranean Region. 2. Architecture, Medieval—Mediterranean Region.
3. Mediterranean Region—Antiquities, Roman. 4. Marble—Recycling—
Mediterranean Region. I. Title.
NA1458.G74 2008
720.9182’2—dc22
2008026654
ISSN 0928-5520
ISBN 978 90 04 17083 4
Copyright 2009 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing,
IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP.
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Fees are subject to change.
printed in the netherlands
CONTENTS
Preface ......................................................................................... xi
Overview ................................................................................. xi
Layout of the Printed Book ................................................... xii
The World Wide Web ............................................................ xiii
The DVD ................................................................................ xiii
Acknowledgments ....................................................................... xvii
PART ONE
SETTING THE SCENE
Chapter One Introduction ...................................................... 3
The Mediterranean: a lake surrounded by marble ............... 3
New marble architecture from prestige materials .................. 10
Population increase, laziness, cost-accounting and building
with antiquities .................................................................... 15
Knowledge and utility of the past ......................................... 17
Evidence, documentation and the search for meaning(s) ...... 20
Religious and secular uses of marble ..................................... 25
But what is marble? ................................................................ 26
Geographical and chronological span of this book,
and its layout ....................................................................... 29
Chapter Two Ancient and Early Christian Europe and
Byzantium ............................................................................... 33
The City of Rome from Augustus to Constantine ................ 33
Marble in the later Empire .................................................... 39
“Beautiful new monuments replace ugly ruins” .................... 43
The Transformation of the Ancient World ........................... 50
Marble in Early Christian Italy .............................................. 52
Byzantium ............................................................................... 67
Marble new and re-used, colonnades and colour ................. 69
Constantinople ........................................................................ 71
Ravenna .................................................................................. 79
Conclusion: marble and pilgrimage ....................................... 81
vi contents
PART TWO
LOGISTICS AND FASHIONS
Chapter Three Quarrying, Transport and Preparation of
Marble in the Middle Ages .................................................... 89
Introduction ............................................................................ 89
Quarrying in the Middle Ages: the outline argument .......... 90
Evidence for mediaeval quarrying ......................................... 93
Antique stockpiles of classical marbles .................................. 111
Stockpiles of classical marbles made in mediaeval centuries 120
Transport by sea ..................................................................... 124
Transport by land ................................................................... 131
Preparation of marbles ........................................................... 136
Conclusion .............................................................................. 138
Chapter Four Looted and Trophy Marble .............................. 141
Introduction: another method of acquisition ........................ 141
Overview of trophy-looting .................................................... 144
Pisa, Genoa and Mahdiya ...................................................... 152
Christians and Muslims in Jerusalem ..................................... 159
Conclusion .............................................................................. 167
Chapter Five The Marble Hit Parade: Marble Members by
Type and Destination ............................................................. 169
Introduction ............................................................................ 169
Marble, polished and squared ................................................ 170
Different sources of re-used materials .................................... 174
Different types of re-used materials ....................................... 182
Types of buildings using marble ............................................ 212
Conclusion .............................................................................. 231
PART THREE
SURVEYS OF THE ISLAMIC AND
CHRISTIAN WORLDS
Chapter Six Byzantium ........................................................... 235
Introduction ............................................................................ 235
Byzantine North Africa .......................................................... 235
contents vii
Constantinople ........................................................................ 239
Anatolia and Greece ............................................................... 241
Conclusion .............................................................................. 252
Chapter Seven Earlier Islam ................................................... 255
Introduction ............................................................................ 255
Diffi culties in investigating early Islamic architecture ............ 261
Large building projects ........................................................... 266
Grandeur and ashes: ruination and re-use ............................ 272
Jerusalem from Herod to Islam .............................................. 275
Mecca and Medina ................................................................. 288
Damascus ................................................................................ 291
Córdoba .................................................................................. 296
Seville and Granada ............................................................... 310
Kairouan, Mahdiya and Tunis ............................................... 313
Baghdad and Samarra ............................................................ 321
Conclusion .............................................................................. 324
Chapter Eight King, Pope, Emir and Caliph: Europe and
the Islamic Building-Boom ..................................................... 327
Introduction ............................................................................ 327
Building with marble before Charlemagne ............................ 329
Charlemagne and marble use ................................................ 333
Charlemagne and the Islamic world ...................................... 344
Aachen as a response to Islam ............................................... 353
Conclusion .............................................................................. 358
Appendix: Ambassadorial etc. exchanges East and West ..... 359
Chapter Nine Italy and Sicily ................................................. 363
Introduction ............................................................................ 363
Early Christian revivals and the Liber Pontifi calis ................ 365
Making do, but aesthetically: revivals in Rome
after the millennium ........................................................... 370
San Vincenzo al Volturno ...................................................... 375
Benevento and elsewhere: marble monuments displayed
on churches ......................................................................... 378
Genoa ...................................................................................... 383
Modena ................................................................................... 387
Sicily: Palermo and Monreale ................................................ 392
Amalfi , Montecassino and Salerno ........................................ 400
viii contents
Apulia: Bari and Trani ........................................................... 410
Pisa .......................................................................................... 411
Venice ...................................................................................... 421
The Gate at Capua, and Frederick II’s antiquities ............... 439
Conclusion .............................................................................. 442
Chapter Ten Egypt, Later Syria and Seljuk and
Ottoman Turkey ..................................................................... 447
Introduction ............................................................................ 447
Alexandria and marble for Cairo ........................................... 448
The Coptic Church and marble ............................................ 452
Cairo/Fustat ............................................................................ 454
Aleppo and Damascus under Abbasids and Mamluks .......... 468
The Seljuks in Anatolia .......................................................... 472
Ottoman Bursa, Manisa and Istanbul ................................... 474
Conclusion .............................................................................. 481
Chapter Eleven France and Christian Spain .......................... 483
Introduction ............................................................................ 483
Before the millennium ............................................................ 484
After the millennium .............................................................. 494
Problems with Glaber’s “White Mantle of Churches” ......... 496
Christian Spain ....................................................................... 501
Santiago de Compostela ......................................................... 508
Building with antiquities in Roman France ........................... 510
Arles ........................................................................................ 511
Narbonne ................................................................................ 518
Conclusion .............................................................................. 521
CONCLUSION & BIBLIOGRAPHY
Conclusion .................................................................................. 525
The Middle Ages and the ancient landscape ........................ 525
Re-used marble and new monuments ................................... 527
Food for thought ..................................................................... 528
The signifi cance of marble use in the Middle Ages ............. 530
contents ix
Bibliography ................................................................................ 531
Abbreviations of frequently cited works ................................ 531
The Mediterranean in architecture, war and commerce ...... 534
Building materials and techniques (excluding marble) .......... 535
Imperial Rome ........................................................................ 536
Transformation of the Roman World .................................... 538
Pilgrimage and Shrines ........................................................... 540
Byzantium and her Empire .................................................... 541
Mediaeval Europe ................................................................... 546
Mediaeval Rome ..................................................................... 547
Egypt ....................................................................................... 551
France ...................................................................................... 553
Islam (more than one country) ............................................... 557
Italian Peninsula ...................................................................... 560
Marble and related stones and their Impact ......................... 561
North Africa excluding Egypt ................................................ 564
Northern Italy except Pisa, Genoa and Venice ..................... 567
Pisa, Genoa and Venice ......................................................... 570
Southern Italy and Sicily ........................................................ 575
Spain ....................................................................................... 580
Re-use of Earlier materials ..................................................... 586
Syria and the Near East ......................................................... 588
Charlemagne to the Hohenstaufen ........................................ 593
Travellers’ Accounts (more than one area) ............................ 596
Turkey (excluding Byzantium) ................................................ 597
England ................................................................................... 598
INDICES
General Index ............................................................................. 601
Index of Marble ......................................................................... 615
Illustrations .................................................................................. 619