Art of al

In 711 an army of Arabs and Berbers from North Africa, united by their faith in Islam, crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and arrived on the Iberian Peninsula. In less than a decade the Muslims brought most of the peninsula under their domination; they called the Iberian lands they controlled al-Andalus. Although the borders of al-Andalus shifted over the centuries, the Muslims remained a powerful force on the peninsula for almost eight hundred years, until 1492, when they were expelled by Ferdinand and Isabella. …

Spanish art of the Middle Ages, a period that has been relatively unexplored in the English-speaking world, is examined here in detail. This publication accompanies a major exhibition for which more than 150 sculptures, architectural elements, paintings, textiles, and objects for everyday and ceremonial use have been gathered from museums and private collections in Spain, the United States, and Europe and Africa. Each work is illustrated (most in full color) and is discussed in texts that will be of interest to both the general reader and the scholar. …

Last year saw the launch of the David Munrow Edition on Virgin Veritas (9/96). The series continues with this, arguably Munrow’s most consistent and most polished collection, devoted to the sacred and secular polyphony of the mid-to-late fifteenth century. These recordings remain marvellously fresh and vital – even in the case of pieces that have since had more polished or more clearly recorded interpretations.