'Otherness’ in Space and Architecture

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Published with the financial support of the Georges-Bloch-
Fonds, University of Zürich (Switzerland) and the Boner
Stiftung für Kunst und Kultur, Chur (Switzerland).

ISBN 978-3-0343-3506-5 (Print)

ISBN 978-3-0343-3554-6 (E-PDF)

ISBN 978-3-0343-3555-3 (E-PUB)

ISBN 978-3-0343-3556-0 (MOBI)

DOI 10.3726/b17533

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Non Commercial No Derivatives 4.0 unported license. To view a copy of this
license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

© Maria Portmann, 2021

Peter Lang - Bern - Berlin - Bruxelles - New York – Oxford

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About the editors

Since 2016 Maria Portmann is chief conservator of historic monuments and sites in the Canton of the Valais (Switzerland). Since 2019, she is a research fellow for the project COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) Action - “Islamic Legacy: Narratives East, West, South, North of the Mediterranean (1350-1750)”. Between 2012 and 2016, she has been a grant holder of the Swiss National Fund for her postdoc research about “Jews and Christians in Western Art (1300-1600).” She has been in residence at the Kunsthistorisches Institut – Max-Planck Institut in Florenz (Italy), Ludwig Maximilian University and at the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte in Munich (Germany) and at the University of Zurich (Switzerland). She earned her PhD at the University of Fribourg (Switzerland). In parallel of her PhD (2009-2011), she was a research fellow for a Spanish National Project at the University of Málaga (Spain).

About the book

Maria Portmann (ed.)

‘Otherness’ in Space and Architecture

This conference proceeding (Sessions on “Otherness in Space and Architecture”, International Medieval Conference, Leeds, 2017 and 2018) is a compilation of articles written by both young and senior scholars, who are working on the question of the ‘self’ and the ‘other’ in Christian, Jewish and Islamic cultures. The articles examine how material, ‘oriental’ objects and knowledge originating in non-Western communities helped building and strengthening the identity of Iberia’s, southern France and northern Italian nobility and its lineages. It is shown how, in the perception of Christians, the public image of Jews and Moslems became constructed as that of adversaries, while their cultural knowledge, at the same time, would be integrated into Christian culture in a paradox manner, in which the ‘self’ necessarily depends on the ‘other’ and how visual tensions in art and space have been used as symbols of power.

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List of Contributors

Synopsis

Maria Portmann

1. Introduction

Michael Conrad

2. The Castle and the Lily: Samuel Ha-Levi’s Synagogue and the Crises of 14th-Century Castile

Maria Portmann

3. Jews and Conversos in Christian Space: Distinctive Signs of the ‘Other’ in the St. Blaise Chapel in the Cathedral of Toledo in Spain

Rubén Gregori

4. Between Public and Private Spheres: The Valencian Jewish Quarter in Christian Space

April L. Najjaj

5. ‘Never Was Raised Such a Monument of this Stature’: The Alhambra and Palace of the Popes in the 14th Century

Luís Ferro

6. Sacred Places: The Cubas from Southern Portugal

Maria Vittoria Spissu

7. Allies of the Order: Guilt-Projecting Witticism and Moral Discredit through Fantastic Non-Human Appearances Referring to Religious Others

8. Ephemeral Art and Otherness: The Image of the Muslim in Valencian Festivities and Triumphal Entries in the 16th and 17th Centuries

Alessandra Mascia

9. Tribute to Caesar: The Medicis’ Giraffe

Catherine Schaller Perret

10. Survivals of Otherness: Astrological Frescoes in the Palazzo of Schifanoia in Ferrara, Italy

Index

List of Contributors

Michael Conrad

University of Zurich (Switzerland)

Luís Ferro

Faculty of Architecture from the University of Porto (Portugal)

Borja Franco Llopis

Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), Madrid (Spain)

Rubén Gregori

University of Valencia (Spain)

Alessandra Mascia

University of Fribourg (Switzerland)