The Memory of Islamic Monuments in Early Modern Spanish Identity

press release: Public Lecture: Monday, September 30, 2019, 5:00 PM @ Conrad A. Elvehjem Building, Room L140

Lecture Abstract: Dr. Antonio Urquízar Herrera’s proposed talk is grounded in a systematic analysis of the cultural and religious appropriation of Andalusian architecture by Spanish historians during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Early Modern Spain was left with a significant Islamic heritage: Córdoba Mosque had been turned into a cathedral, in Seville the Aljama Mosque’s minaret was transformed into a Christian bell tower, and Granada Alhambra had become a Renaissance palace. To date this process of Christian appropriation has frequently been discussed as a phenomenon of hybridization. 

Biography: Dr. Urquízar-Herrera is Professor at the History of Art Department of the UNED, Madrid. During the past twenty years he has enjoyed short, medium and long-term research stays and visiting fellowships at different universities: Lima, Padova, London (Warburg Institute), Lisbon, New York (IHA), Paris (EHESS and INHA), and Cambridge. He will perform a new stay at Cambridge during spring- summer 2020. He frequently participates as invited lecturer or speaker at universities and conferences in Europe and the US. His several books about early modern art in Spain include Admiration and Awe: Morisco Buildings and Identity Negotiations in Early Modern Spanish Historiography (Oxford UP, 2017), and Coleccionismo y nobleza: signos de distinción social en la Andalucía del Renacimiento (Marcial Pons, 2007). He has recently co-edited the volume Another Image: Jews and Muslims Made Visible in Christian Iberia and Beyond, 14th to 18th Centuries (2019, Brill, Leyden).

This event is possible thanks to the generous financial support of the UW Anonymous Fund. The Center for Visual Cultures would also like to thank the Buildings-Landscapes, Cultures Program, the Middle East Studies Program, LACIS, the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, and the Department of Art History for their support.