Moslem Architecture: Its Origins and Development

The book is divided into two parts. In the first I describe, by the help of buildings selected from the most of remarkable of their class and erected in the most important centres, some of the chief satges in the development of the mosque, from its birth down to the XII century. An appendix to this is formed by a short but searching examination of some of the most important ecclesiastical buildings of Armenia, which are so little known and yet so full of interest. The object of this investigation is to ascertain whether these buildings had any influence on old moslem or Christian architecture, and if so, what was its nature. In the second part I discuss at length the new and attractive theory according to which the origin and development of the systematic use of the horse-shoe arch belongs to the Iberian peninsula. The scale of treatment is made necessary by the importance of some will, perhaps, arouse most controversy; but it is often from the contact of opposing views that a spark of light is struck.