Notre Dame Cathedral. Westminster Abbey. Lisbon Cathedral. The Leaning Tower of Pisa.
All are architectural wonders and illustrious examples of the Romanesque style of architecture, which blossomed in Europe in the 11th and 12th centuries. While all these buildings have very strong national identities and associations, their design and construction – executed at the highest level of artistry in the world – were not of European origin, but were derived almost entirely from the Muslim world.
In “Islamesque: The Forgotten Craftsmen Who Built Europe’s Medieval Monuments,” historian Diana Darke offers up a pioneering work of scholarship that strives to give credit to the innumerable Muslim artisans who produced these architectural marvels. So great is the Romanesque’s debt to them, Darke argues in an audacious challenge to art historical orthodoxy, that the style should more properly be called “Islamesque.”
“Romanesque” is the name art historians have given to the architectural style that emerged across Italy, France, England, and Germany, making it the first pan-European architectural style since Imperial Roman architecture. The name was meant to invoke the rebirth of classical Roman values, which brought the Dark Ages to a close and ushered in the Renaissance.
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