Admiration and Awe

This book offers the first systematic analysis of the cultural and religious appropriation of Andalusian architecture by Spanish historians during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. To date this process of Christian appropriation has generally been discussed as a phenomenon of architectural hybridisation. However, this was a period in which the construction of a Spanish national identity became a key focus of historical discourse. As a result, culturalhybridity encountered partial opposition from those seeking to establish cultural and religious homogeneity. Spain's Islamic past became a major concern in this period and historical writing served as the site for a complex negotiation of identity. Historians and antiquarians used a range of strategies to re-appropriate the meaning of medieval Islamic heritage as befitted the new identity of Spain as a Catholic monarchy and empire. On the one hand, the monuments' Islamic origin was subjected to historical revisions and re-identified as Roman or Phoenician. On the other hand, religious forgeries wereinvented that staked claims for buildings and cities having been founded by Christians prior to the arrival of the Muslims in Spain. Islamic stones were used as core evidence in debates that shaped the early development of archaeology, and they also became the centre of a historical controversy aboutthe origin of Spain as a nation as well as its ecclesiastical history.

informatively very rich and from a research point of view an innovative book ... the first systematic analysis of the cultural and religious appropriation of Islamic urbanism and architecture in the Iberian Peninsula during the Early Modern Period by Spanish historians., [T]he identification and analysis of historical writings from the 16thand 17thcenturies, the careful citation of sources, and the extensive bibliography serve well the serious student of Spain's history... Recommended., Urquízar-Herrera's well-researched book strikes deep into vital questions about the art history of Early Modern Spain ... Urquízar-Herrera wrote a book that advances the study of dissemination and reception of historiographical narratives. He brings in support of his claims both visual and written arguments that provide an extensive approach to the relationship between the manipulation of images and ideological appropriation., Admiration and Awe is deeply researched, penetrating and thought-provoking. ... [the reader] will also appreciate the excellent selection of images and the wealth of primary and secondary sources that Urquizar-Herrera has minded and assembled in an invaluable forty-six-page bibliography. This will be an indispensable volume for students of early modern historiography.

Antonio Urquízar-Herrera is Associate Professor at the History of Art Department of the UNED, Madrid, as well as Life Member at Clare Hall, University of Cambridge. He has published several monographs about Early Modern Art in Spain, among them Coleccionismo y nobleza. Signos de distinción social en la Andalucía del Renacimiento (2007). He has also published more than thirty book chapters and articles in International and Spanish peer reviewjournals. He has been principal investigator of a number of different research groups and research projects on Early Modern Art in Spain.