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Home > Exhibition Trails > Italy > Siculo-norman Art > Itinerary IIISICULO-NORMAN ART
Islamic Culture in Medieval Sicily
Region: Sicily
ITINERARY III: Royal Art in the Norman Age: Institutional Architecture
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Interpretations of the great works of the Norman period produced in Sicily between the 9th and 10th centuries are extremely articulate. Introduction of elements of Arabic art during the effective period of enforced Islamisation of Sicily had been preceded with a long series of exchanges (and of clashes) with the cultures of the island's populations; in architecture, Islamic art which at that time availed itself of Greco-Roman and Persian influences, had found a strong Byzantine presence with significant elements of earlier times. After an initial period of permanence in the regulations and in the artistic ways in the respective areas of cultural origin, whether the Norman Dynasty or the senior Siculo-Greek dignitaries of the new Kingdom of Sicily jointly promoted the artistic, scientific and cultural blossoming already initiated in Sicily (from 969) by the same Fatimids, giving birth to the richest artistic development of the age, characterised by the autonomous Siculo-Norman decline in a now mature Islamic Koine. |