Court of the Lions

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The Court of the Lions (Spanish: Patio de los Leones - Arabic: بهو السباع‎) is the main court of the Nasrid Palace of the Lions. It is located in the heart of the Alhambra, the Moorish citadel formed by a complex of palaces, gardens and forts in Granada, Spain. It was commissioned by the Nasrid king Muhammed V. Its construction started in the second period of his reign, between 1362 and 1391 CE.

Contents 1 Background and architectural influences 2 Description of the court 3 Meaning of its formal structure 4 The Fountain of the Lions 4.1 Excerpt of Ibn Zamrak's poem on the basin 5 Gallery 6 References 7 Footnotes

[edit] Background and architectural influences

The Palace of the Lions, as well as the rest of the other new rooms built under Muhammad V,^[1] like the Mexuar or Cuarto Dorado meant the beginning of a new style, an exuberant mixture of Moorish and Christian influences that has been called Nasrid style. During the period that Muhammad V was ousted as sultane of Granada by his step-brother, Abu-l Walid Ismail, he discovered in exile a host of new aesthetic influences that were not in the language of his predecessors, not even in his own first contributions to the enrichment of the Nasrid palaces of the Alhambra. In Fes he saw the Almoravid mosque of Qarawiyyin, built by Andalusian architects. The splendor of the decorations, specially the profuse use of the muqarnas that had once decorated the palaces and mosques of Al-Ándalus, stunned the ex-sultan, as did the ruins of the Roman city of Volubilis, where he could directly examine the classical orders, Roman ornamentation and, above all, the disposition of the Roman 'impluvium'; the Roman ruins at Volubilis were particularly well preserved since they had been abandoned for a period of time in the Middle Ages and later constructively re-used as a necropolis.^[2] Muhammad became an ally of his personal friend, the Christian king Pedro I of Castile, who helped him to regain the throne and defeat the usurpers. Meanwhile, he was also astonished with the construction of the palace of Pedro I, the Alcázar of Seville, built in Mudéjar style by architects from Toledo, Seville and Granada. The influence of this Mudéjar style of King Pedro in the future Palace of the Lions was going to be decisive, especially the structure and disposition of the Qubba rooms along two axis of the 'Patio de las Doncellas' ("Court of the Maidens").

[edit] Description of the court

The Court of the Lions is an oblong court, 116 ft (35 m) in length by 66 ft (20 m) in width, surrounded by a low gallery supported on 124 white marble columns. A pavilion projects into the court at each extremity, with filigree walls and light domed roof, elaborately ornamented. The square is paved with coloured tiles, and the colonnade with white marble; while the walls are covered 5 ft (1.5 m) up from the ground with blue and yellow tiles, with a border above and below enamelled blue and gold. The columns supporting the roof and gallery are irregularly placed, with a view to artistic effect; and the general form of the piers, arches and pillars is most graceful. They are adorned by varieties of foliage, etc.; about each arch there is a large square of arabesques; and over the pillars is another square of exquisite filigree work. In the center of the court is the celebrated Fountain of Lions, a magnificent alabaster basin supported by the figures of twelve lions in white marble.

[edit] Meaning of its formal structure

The structure of the court, has, as it has been said, a direct influence of the Sevillian Patio de las Doncellas, but its meaning and origins connect with the Persian roots of the Islamic gardening and its Charbagh, the court divided in four parts, each one of them symbolizing one of the four parts of the world. Each part is irrigated by a water channel that symbolize the four rivers of the Paradise. This court, is, therefore an architectural materialization of the Paradise, where the gardens, the water and the columns form a conceptual and physical unity. The slender column forest have been said to represent the palm trees of an oasis in the desert, deeply related with Paradise in the Nasrid imagination. In the poem of Ibn Zamrak on the basin of the fountain a further meaning is stated clearly: The fountain is the Sultan, which smothers with his graces all his subjects and lands, as the water wets the gardens.

Nowadays the flower garden has been substituted by a dry garden of pebbles, in order not to affect the foundings of the palace with the watering. In Nasrid times the floor of the plantation quarters was slightly lower than the general level, and the visual effect was like a tapestry of flowers, as the top of the plants were cut to the same level of the court, and these were carefully chosen to cover a host of color nuances.

[edit] The Fountain of the Lions

The origin and meaning of the Fountain of the Lions has generated many legends, mainly due to its unusual themes for a Muslim palace: twelve figurative lions. By the time when the palace was built the isolation from the rest of the Islam, and the relations of friendship with the Kingdom of Castile originated a two-way infuence stream, and the use of figurative motifs was not strange to the Nasrid art, as seen in the paintings of the Hall of the Kings. The fountain and the lions had a model in the Fountain of the Temple of Solomon, described in the Books of Chronicles of the Old Testament^[3] The parallels are explicit in a poem of the Hispano-Hebrew Ibn Gabirol, which is a tissue of quotes and parallels of the Hebrew Bible:

...and there is a full sea, matching Solomon's sea

"There is a pond, like the Sea of Solomon

It doesn't rest over bulls

but over lions arranged in circles:

They seem to roar to their prey.

Water flows from their mouth without end,

it springs like the torrents of a stream.

It runs to their feet through channels

arranged like open drainpipes under the Sun

to irrigate the bloomed parterres.

Their limpid streams flood the grass

They want to refresh the Garden of the Myrtles!

They elevate themselves over clouds just up to the top of the trees

and they scatter balsamic perfumes

smelling just like the scent of the myrtles and the incense.

The birds chirp on the branches,

looking beneath the date palm trees.

The flowers form lusty private open rooms

of rose, narcissus and camphor tree scents.

Their varieties are countless!"^[4]

The lions were re-used, probably taken from a Cordobese Caliphal palace, where they would had been located two by two in a linear disposition. The basin was changed when Mohammed V moved the fountain to its definitive location: the poet and minister Ibn Zamrak was commanded to write a poem to describe the beauty of the courtyard. It was going to be carved around the border of the new basin.

[edit] Excerpt of Ibn Zamrak's poem on the basin

"...Such a translucent basin, sculpted pearl!

Argentic ripples are added on it by the quiet dew

And its liquid silver goes over the daisies, melted, and even purer.

Hard and soft are so close, that it would be hard to distinguish

liquid and solid, marble and water. Which one is running?

Don't you see how water overflows the borders

and the warned drains are here against it?

They are like the lover who in vain

tries to hide his tears from his beloved..."

[edit] Gallery

Detail: sebka decoration and arches of muqarnas	Stilted arches of the gallery	Detail of one of the advanced pavillions.	One of the Romantic non-historical restorations of the 19th century

[edit] References

• Robert Irwin, The Alhambra, ISBN 9781861974877, 2005
• Manzano Martos, Rafael. La Alhambra: El universo mágico de la Granada islámica. Editorial Anaya, 1992. ISBN 84-207-4833-1, ISBN 978-8420748337
• Chueca Goitia, Fernando: Invariantes castizos de la Arquitectura Española. Manifiesto de la Alhambra ISBN 84-237-0459-9

[edit] Footnotes