Identifier: historyofarchit02cumm (find matches)
Title: A history of architecture in Italy from the time of Constantine to the dawn of the renaissance
Year: 1901 (1900s)
Authors: Cummings, Charles Amos, 1833-1905
Subjects: Architecture
Publisher: Boston, New York, Houghton Mifflin and company
Contributing Library: PIMS - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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THE SOUTHERN ROMANESQUE 81 Italy the undisputed leader of the civilization of the world, had noparallel in the South. For a brief period, indeed, this brilliantflowering of the genius of Italy was anticipated in the neighboringisland of Sicily, under the extraordinary mixture of races which fol-lowed the Norman conquest. I shall attempt in the next chapterto trace briefly the history of this remarkable phenomenon.
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Fig. 292. Monreale. Portion of Doors of Bonaimo. CHAPTER VI SICILIAN ARCHITECTURE Our knowledge of tlie mediaeval architecture of Sicily begins,singularly enough, with the Norman occupation in the eleventh cen-tury. When we consider the close and continuous connection, bothpolitical and commercial, which was maintained for nearly or quitefour hundred years between this great island and the Eastern Empire,and the Saracen occupation which followed the decay of that empire,and which endured for more than two hundred years, it is inexpli-cable that so little, so nearly nothing in fact, should remain of themonuments of those six centuries. Of the earlier period, we canonly conjecture that in the savage and long-continued wars by whichthe Saracens finally overthrew the Byzantine domination, the Byzan-tine monuments, probably of somewhat unsubstantial character, weresacrificed to the religious zeal of the conquerors. Yet in the destroy-ing raids of the Saracens upon the southern provinces of

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