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Course: Art of the Islamic world 640 to now > Unit 2
Lesson 2: Medieval period- Arts of the Islamic world: the medieval period
- Folio from a Qur'an
- Dado Panel, Courtyard of the Royal Palace of Mas’ud III
- The Ben Ezra Synagogue, Fustat, Egypt
- Rock crystal ewer, San Marco
- The Great Mosque (or Masjid-e Jameh) of Isfahan
- The Great Mosque of Isfahan
- Two royal figures (Saljuq Period)
- Artist, scribe, and poet: Abu Zayd and 12th-century Iranian ceramics
- Alexander, the Mongols, and the great epic of Iran
- Bahram Gur Fights the Karg (Horned Wolf)
- Bahram Gur in a Peasant’s House, Ilkhanid Dynasty
- Ilkhanid Mihrab
- Basin (Baptistère de Saint Louis)
- Mamluk Qur’an
- Madrasa and Friday Mosque of Sultan Hasan, Cairo
- A glass lamp: illuminating sultan Hassan’s mosque and madrasa
- A Mamluk candlestick base
- Pyxis of al-Mughira
- Pyxis of al-Mughira
- The Alhambra
- The Alhambra
- Great Mosque of Tlemcen
- A Pink Qur'an
- Conservation: The Nasrid plasterwork collection at the V&A
- Coronation mantle
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Coronation mantle
Coronation Mantle, 1133/34, fabric from Byzantium or Thebes, samite, silk, gold, pearls, filigree, sapphires, garnets, glass, and cloisonné enamel, 146 x 345 cm (Neue Hofburg, Vienna). Likely made for the Norman ruler Roger II in 1133/34 in the royal workshop in Palermo of fabric from Byzantium or Thebes, Samite, silk, gold, pearls, filigree, sapphires, garnets, glass, and cloisonné enamel. The Kufic script reads: "This mantle was worked in the most magnificent clothing workshop and is connected with the desire and hopes, felicitous days and nights without cease or change, with authority, with honor and felicity, assurances of trust, reverent care, protection, good destiny, freedom from harm, triumph and livelihood in the capital city of Sicily in the year 528" (or 1133/34 in the Gregorian calendar). Neue Hofburg, Vienna. Speakers: Dr. Steven Zucker and Dr. Beth Harris. Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.
Want to join the conversation?
- how heavy is it?(48 votes)
- Well If you asked me if I wanted an 11kg mantle full with gold threads and pearls I would definitly want to wear it!(3 votes)
- Do you think that modern artisans could have produced such a fine robe?(14 votes)
- Yes, there are many medieval groups who delight in recreating such splendid objects. I know of one local member of the SCA who has spent over 400 hours sewing a similar cloak, she's about a quarter of the way through. She uses period techniques and materials. By the time she's finished, the cloak will be worth half a million dollars or more in labour alone. That doesn't include the pearls and gold she's using.(29 votes)
- Can anyone offer an educated guess at the number of man hours it would take to create something as ornate as this?(6 votes)
- I'm going to say perhaps 1200 hours or so. Due to seeing similar cloaks remade. Keep in mind people were much more skilled back when this was made. I'm merely giving you my guess. Please don't quote me on this.(3 votes)
- What were the relations between the Normans and Arabs?(8 votes)
- ...in many cases, very cordial - listen carefully to what the lecturers say about King Roger. Also it is not useful in the long run to group all the Muslim people of the region in question as "Arabs": the Muslim population of the Iberian Peninsula was made up of Berbers, Arabs, Slavs and native converts. It is noted that many Christian Spaniards (Mozarabs) could read, write and speak Arabic. Also noteworthy is the fact that religious changes brought about changes in the relationships between peoples. Unfortunately the period is often seen through the filter of later historical events.(8 votes)
- What does the Arabic writings at the bottom say?(5 votes)
- This belongs to the articles worked in the Royal workshop, (which has) flourished with fortune and honour, with industry and perfection, with might and merit, with (this) sanction and (his) prosperity, with magnanimity and majesty, with renown and beauty and the fulfillment of desires and hopes and with felicitous days and nights without cease of change!, with honour and solicitude, with protection and defence, with success and certainty, with triumph and industry. In the (capital) city of Sicily I the year 528.
Quoted from: http://www.viennatouristguide.at/Altstadt/Schatzkammer/Mantel/englkro.htm
Note: It uses the islamic calendar, so the year is misleading.(9 votes)
- How much would it cost in USD these days?(4 votes)
- Ok. Wow, this is crazy, it was made with about 100,000 pearls. assuming that we use the CHEAPEST pearl available, which averages out to somewhere around 1224 USD, multiply that 100,000 times and we get.. 122,400,000, One Hundred and Twenty Two Million dollars
and that is ONLY the pearls. Not including any of the gold on it.(3 votes)
- who were the roman emperor? and what is the sceptre?(4 votes)
- Rome didn't exist at this time period. It was the "Holy Roman Empire", founded by the Frankish Charlemagne, and later on led by a bunch of Germans and Austrians.(1 vote)
- I love how the camels' eyes seem to 'pop' out.
My question is: Where was this mantle found before it was put in the museum? Was it passed down from generation to generation, or just left in a room somewhere?(3 votes)- It was pretty much passed down, as the Holy Roman Empire only ended in 1806, and the Austrian Emperor reigned after that until 1918. The mantle formed part of the Nuremberg Regalia, and was housed in Nuremberg from 1424-1796 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Regalia). It was transferred to the Imperial Treasury (Ger: Schatzkammer) at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, Austria, around 1800, as a protection against Napoleon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Treasury_%28Vienna%29), and entered the Hofburg Palace. Subsequently, they were returned to Nuremberg by the Nazis in 1936, then back to Vienna following the conclusion of WWII; the Imperial Treasury is now part of the Museum of Art History (Ger: Kunsthistorisches Museum). What I would like to know is whether the mantle was used in coronations of later emperors; usage would probably imply more conservative tendencies.(2 votes)
- At1:10in the video Steven says vitrify but the interactive trancript has the word incorrectly transcribed as petrify. Can someone tell me the proper way to notify Khan Academy of typos, content errors or other piquant miscellany, that is if they wished to be notified at all?(2 votes)
- Thanks for taking the time to write. We very much appreciate comments and corrections. There are many errors in the transcriptions and we are actively working to correct these.(3 votes)
- Why would a Christian ruler wear a coronation mantle that has Islamic motifs? (1:15)(3 votes)
Video transcript
DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: We're
in the Hofburg in Vienna, in the royal treasury,
which is filled with crowns and scepters. DR. BETH HARRIS:
Reliquaries and jewels. It's amazing. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: And
one of the real treasures is an enormous
mantle that was worn during the coronations of
the Holy Roman emperors. But that's not what
this was made for. This was made in the
12th century in Sicily-- actually, in the royal
workshops of Roger II, who was a Norman that ruled. Now the Normans,
you might remember, actually began as Vikings. They came down from the
north and they eventually settled in Northwestern France
and also at the bottom of Italy and the island of Sicily. And that's where this was made. DR. BETH HARRIS: So this
is a really large cloak. You can see the
clasps at the top, for where it would have been
worn over the shoulders. And it's made of red silk,
gold stitching, and thousands of pearls, and enamel
plates, and jewels. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: And it's
in exceptional condition. The enamel is made of cloisonne,
where very fine walls of gold separate the enamels themselves
as they melt, as they vitrify. And what's so interesting
about this mantle is if you look at its
imagery, even though it was made for a Christian ruler,
it's full of Islamic motifs. It was made by Islamic artisans. DR. BETH HARRIS: And we see
that in the lion overpowering a camel. We see it in the
calligraphic script along the semicircular bottom. And the tree of
life in the center. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: A motif
almost identical to that in the Dome of the
Rock in Jerusalem. These are motifs that come
out of pattern books that would have transversed
the Islamic world and were copied over
hundreds of years. DR. BETH HARRIS:
The robe was clearly meant to symbolize power. Look at the forms
of those lions. They're schematic and not
terribly naturalistic, but they evoke a real
sense of fierceness in their faces and
their puffed out chests. And the camels look so
subdued and overpowered. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: Those
camels are domesticated. They're actually
wearing saddles. One of the interpretations
of this iconography, of this symbolism, is that
the lions are actually representing the Normans. The house of Roger II had
as its symbol the lion. Whereas the camel might be
a reference to the peoples that Roger had conquered. DR. BETH HARRIS: So
although this cloak was made in the 12th century,
it acquired the legend that it was made
for Charlemagne, for the very first Holy Roman
Emperor for the 9th century. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: But we
know that that's not the case because, in fact, the Kufic
conscription, Arabic writing, gives us a specific date. DR. BETH HARRIS:
This mantle is worked in the most magnificent
royal splendor. Perfection, might, superiority,
approval, prosperity, magnanimity, beauty,
the fulfillment of all desires and hopes,
felicitous days and nights without cease or change. With authority,
with honor, freedom from harm, triumph,
and livelihood in the city of Sicily
in the year 528. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER:
528, according to the Islamic calendar, dating
from the time of Muhammad. This correlated with
the 12th century in the Western calendar. Those plates also have
an important iconography that has an Islamic origin. You'll see a star
that's made out of the intersection
of two squares. And going back to the
beginning of Islam there was a notion that
the Earth was a square and the heavens were a square. And here we see those overlaid. And so you do have a
cosmological reference. And perhaps a reference that
Roger, himself, ruled overall. DR. BETH HARRIS: There's
a clear sense here of speaking to the
owner's grandeur. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: Just
imagine through history those that were crowned
Holy Roman Emperor wearing this garment. Carrying an orb. Carrying a scepter. The pope. A huge ensemble of the most
powerful people in the West. It must have been
quite a sight to see.