About the Book The book is divided into two parts. In the first I describe, by the help of buildings selected from the most of remarkable of their class and erected in the most important centres, some of the chief satges in the development of the mosque, from its birth down to the XII century. An appendix to this is formed by a short but searching examination of some of the most Important ecclesiastical buildings of which are so little known and yet so full of interest. The object of this investigation is to ascertain whether these buildings had any influence on old moslem or Christian architecture, and so, what was its nature. In the second part discuss at length the new and attractive theory according to which the origin and. development of the systematic use of the horse-shoe arch belongs to the Iberian peninsula. The scale of treatment is made necessary by the importance of some will, perhaps, arouse most controversy; but it is often from the contact of opposing views that a spark of light is struck.
About the Author GIOVANNI TERESIO RIVOIRA (1849-1919), Italian archaeologist, was born at La Manta di Saluzzo in Piedmont Sept. 22 1849. He came of an old Piedmontese family and on his mother's side was descended from the Riccati (see 23.288), a family of mathematicians and architects. He took his training as an architect and engineer at the university of Turin, entered Rome with the Italian army in 1870 and thenceforth resided there, devoting his life to travel and to the study of the architecture of the later Roman Empire. In 1884 he married Edith E. Johnson of Cheltenham. He published two monumental works, Le Origini dell' Architettura Lombarda (1901-7, Eng. trans. 1910) and Architettura Musulmana (1914, Eng. trans. 1919). At the time of his death in Rome March 3 1919 he was engaged upon a third, Architettura Romana, which was published in Rome (1920) by his widow.
Preface This book does not pretend to be a History of Moslem Architecture-the style which is sometimes described as Arabic, but wrongly, for the Arabs, like the Goths, the Langobardi, the Normans, and the other Barbarian Invaders, brought no architecture of their own with them into the countries which they conquered. What they carried was the scimitar and the Koran; and their energies were devoted to imposing the faith of the Prophet, and at the same time satisfying their insatiable lust for plunder and rapine. Too many elements, whether of history, architecture, or art, are still waiting for the execution of such a colossal undertaking, and for carrying it out in the manner which I have in view: I mean the writing of a History based essentially on historical facts, on monuments of ascertained date, examined by the author in person, if not in every, at least in most cases, supposing that they are still in existence, and also founded on logical inferences, My work, on the contrary, is devoted solely to an inquiry into the origins and the development of the elements which were destined to form one branch of that style. But it is the main branch, because religious architecture has always been the principal representative of the great building art: save only in the days of the Roman Empire, when architectural science found its highest expression in the Baths and Tombs.
The book is divided into two parts. In the first I describe, by the help of buildings selected from the most remarkable of their class, and erected in the most important centres, some of the chief stages in the development of the Mosque, from its birth down to the XII century. An appendix to this is formed by a short but searching examination of some of the most important ecclesiastical buildings of Armenia, which are so little known and yet so full of interest. The object of this investigation is to ascertain whether these buildings had any influence on the old Moslem or Christian architecture, and if so, what was its nature.
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