Brick by Brick: Constructing Identity at Don Lope Fernández de Luna’s Parroquieta at La Seo
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Nina Maria Gonzalbez
Abstract
The fourteenth-century capilla de San Miguel, popularly known as the parroquieta, was built in Zaragoza, Spain, as the funerary chapel of the Archbishop of Zaragoza, Lope Fernández de Luna (r. 1351-1382). Art and architectural historians describe the chapel as a mudéjar structure or a Christian structure with Islamic design elements. This categorization is reinforced through UNESCO’s World Heritage List and its inclusion of the parroquieta in the entry for mudéjar architecture of Aragón. UNESCO’s description of mudéjar as “the only style unique to Spain” encumbers the term with elements of national identity that underplay the global features of late medieval Iberian architecture. The chapel’s patron, a member of a powerful noble family in Aragón, traveled extensively as a trusted advisor to King Pedro IV of Aragón (r. 1336-1387). The monument should more accurately be read as a combination of artistic forms incorporating elements from the local Aragónese Gothic, pre-Christian Aragónese Islamic architecture, pre-Christian and Christian Andalusia (specifically Sevillian), Italian, and Castilian traditions. Luna’s funerary chapel is best understood as a structure that affirms the archbishop’s cosmopolitanism and celebrates his career as an international diplomat, and not as a comment on interfaith relations in medieval Iberia, as the ‘mudéjar’ designation often implies.
Abstract
The fourteenth-century capilla de San Miguel, popularly known as the parroquieta, was built in Zaragoza, Spain, as the funerary chapel of the Archbishop of Zaragoza, Lope Fernández de Luna (r. 1351-1382). Art and architectural historians describe the chapel as a mudéjar structure or a Christian structure with Islamic design elements. This categorization is reinforced through UNESCO’s World Heritage List and its inclusion of the parroquieta in the entry for mudéjar architecture of Aragón. UNESCO’s description of mudéjar as “the only style unique to Spain” encumbers the term with elements of national identity that underplay the global features of late medieval Iberian architecture. The chapel’s patron, a member of a powerful noble family in Aragón, traveled extensively as a trusted advisor to King Pedro IV of Aragón (r. 1336-1387). The monument should more accurately be read as a combination of artistic forms incorporating elements from the local Aragónese Gothic, pre-Christian Aragónese Islamic architecture, pre-Christian and Christian Andalusia (specifically Sevillian), Italian, and Castilian traditions. Luna’s funerary chapel is best understood as a structure that affirms the archbishop’s cosmopolitanism and celebrates his career as an international diplomat, and not as a comment on interfaith relations in medieval Iberia, as the ‘mudéjar’ designation often implies.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- Globalism in the Pre-Modern World? Questions, Challenges, and the Emergence of a New Approach to the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Age 1
- Global Inferno: Medieval Giants, Monsters, and the Breaching of the Great Barrier 99
- Swords as Medieval Icons and Early “Global Brands” 147
- Ecce! A Ninth-Century Isidorean T-O Map Labeled in Arabic 189
- Going Rogue Across the Globe: International Vagrants, Outlaws, Bandits, and Tricksters from Medieval Europe, Asia, and the Middle East 221
- Modifying Ancestral Memories in Post-Carolingian West Francia and Post-Tang Wuyue China 247
- Scalping Saint Peter’s Head: An Interreligious Controversy over a Punishment from Baghdad to Rome (Eighth to Twelfth Centuries) 273
- A Global Dialogue in al-Kindī’s “A Short Treatise on the Soul” 293
- Globalism in Paul of Antioch’s Letter to a Muslim Friend and Its Refutation by Ibn Taymiyya 315
- The Global Fable in the Middle Ages 351
- Globalism in the Late Middle Ages: The Low German Niederrheinische Orientbericht as a Significant Outpost of a Paradigm Shift. The Move Away from Traditional Eurocentrism 381
- The Germanic Translations of Lanfranc’s Surgical Works as Example of Global Circulation of Knowledge 407
- Brick by Brick: Constructing Identity at Don Lope Fernández de Luna’s Parroquieta at La Seo 445
- Quello assalto di Otranto fu cagione di assai male. First Results of a Study of the Globalization in the Neapolitan Army in the 1480s 463
- The Diplomat and the Public House: Ioannes Dantiscus (1485–1548) and His Use of the Inns, Taverns, and Alehouses of Europe 485
- Globalism During the Reign of Queen Elizabeth I 509
- Between East and West: John Pory’s Translation of Leo Africanus’s Description of Africa 537
- The Old and the New – Pepper, Bezoar, and Other Exotic Substances in Bohemian Narratives about Distant Lands from the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period (up to the 1560s) 553
- John Dee and the Creation of the British Empire 581
- Eberhard Werner Happel: A Seventeenth-Century Cosmographer and Cosmopolitan 595
- Globalism Before Modern Globalism 613
- List of Illustrations 623
- Biographies of the Contributors 627
- Index 635
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- Globalism in the Pre-Modern World? Questions, Challenges, and the Emergence of a New Approach to the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Age 1
- Global Inferno: Medieval Giants, Monsters, and the Breaching of the Great Barrier 99
- Swords as Medieval Icons and Early “Global Brands” 147
- Ecce! A Ninth-Century Isidorean T-O Map Labeled in Arabic 189
- Going Rogue Across the Globe: International Vagrants, Outlaws, Bandits, and Tricksters from Medieval Europe, Asia, and the Middle East 221
- Modifying Ancestral Memories in Post-Carolingian West Francia and Post-Tang Wuyue China 247
- Scalping Saint Peter’s Head: An Interreligious Controversy over a Punishment from Baghdad to Rome (Eighth to Twelfth Centuries) 273
- A Global Dialogue in al-Kindī’s “A Short Treatise on the Soul” 293
- Globalism in Paul of Antioch’s Letter to a Muslim Friend and Its Refutation by Ibn Taymiyya 315
- The Global Fable in the Middle Ages 351
- Globalism in the Late Middle Ages: The Low German Niederrheinische Orientbericht as a Significant Outpost of a Paradigm Shift. The Move Away from Traditional Eurocentrism 381
- The Germanic Translations of Lanfranc’s Surgical Works as Example of Global Circulation of Knowledge 407
- Brick by Brick: Constructing Identity at Don Lope Fernández de Luna’s Parroquieta at La Seo 445
- Quello assalto di Otranto fu cagione di assai male. First Results of a Study of the Globalization in the Neapolitan Army in the 1480s 463
- The Diplomat and the Public House: Ioannes Dantiscus (1485–1548) and His Use of the Inns, Taverns, and Alehouses of Europe 485
- Globalism During the Reign of Queen Elizabeth I 509
- Between East and West: John Pory’s Translation of Leo Africanus’s Description of Africa 537
- The Old and the New – Pepper, Bezoar, and Other Exotic Substances in Bohemian Narratives about Distant Lands from the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period (up to the 1560s) 553
- John Dee and the Creation of the British Empire 581
- Eberhard Werner Happel: A Seventeenth-Century Cosmographer and Cosmopolitan 595
- Globalism Before Modern Globalism 613
- List of Illustrations 623
- Biographies of the Contributors 627
- Index 635
