MEZQUITA DEL CRISTO DE LA LUZ

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  • The discovery of a Roman road on the northern esplanade of Cristo de la Luz, of six metres wide and under which a sewer appeared. The road upon which a part of the mosque was built is one of the most important we know in Spain. It was formed by large granite slabs and it ran from north to south. The urban structure of the area was modified during the Arab domination, burying the Roman road under a set of new buildings, among those, our mosque with its corresponding streets.
  
  
  
  

• No remnants of any previous edification have been found under the Worship House, for what the possibility that it had been built upon a previous Visigothic church has been discarded.


• The remains that appeared under the apse of the 12th century correspond to the foundations of said apse, built in very thick stone. Neither under that apse any remains of Roman construction have been found, as it was initially thought of.

Its plan has the shape of a Greek cross inscribed in a right angle of 7.90 m x 8.60 m, that gives place to nine almost square compartments of a bit less than 2 m by side and separated by horseshoe arches. All the shifts measure 8 m high, except the central dome, supported upon four cylindrical columns with reutilized Visigothic capitals, that reaches 10.60m. As we have mentioned, a large semicircular apse was added at the northeastern side on the 12th century, considered to be the most ancient construction of the Romanesque-Moorish style, which altered noticeably the original plan. According to the remains of the foundations discovered in 1909,  Gómez Moreno thought that the mihrab would be found in the centre of the wall of the qibla, and it would have had a square plan somewhat larger than the compartments and would have been modified  in order to place the altar and turn it into a  church on the 11th century, but, following the present researches, these remnants belong to the 16th century and no trace of the mihrab has been found.

Built in brick with lime mortar, except in some areas like the lower part preserved from the wall of the qibla, where a reutilized ashlar exists; its present image is the one of a large cube that protrudes in the centre of the hipped tile covering, a central square lantern also covered by a hipped roof, supported in both cases by large eaves upon modillions. Later, a straight stretch and a semicircular apse in Moorish style were added, that perfectly match the original style forming an homogenous set of a very attractive external aesthetics.

The main facade is formed by three bodies. The first one of them has three doors that finish in arches of different shape. The one at the left has a polifoiled arch, the central one, a semicircular arch as a result of a later modification and the last one, a horseshoe arch. The second body is decorated by a double round of intertwined arches, and the third one presents an openwork lattice upon which the Kufic inscription can be found, that provides information about its origin and building date and has the peculiarity that it is the only Arabic inscription known created exclusively with brick shards.

But whilst everything we see in its outside unquestionably belongs to the Islamic art, from our point of view, we should consider in its interior two levels of very different characteristics. On one side, which we could call the first level, that includes the sketch of the plan and the general structure of the building, does not have precedents in Al Andalus, notwithstanding it recalls the Mozarabic churches closer to the Visigothic art, like Santa María de Wamba and Santa María de Lebeña, both built at least half a century earlier, due to its image of strength offered by the system formed by the twelve arches that support its structure, as well as for its cross shape inscribed in a square and divided in nine compartments provided with independent cover systems that, as with the indicated cases, they are separated by horseshoe arches that lean on pillars with imposts in the lateral walls and in four columns with capitals and imposts in the centre, that also support the lantern.

As a summary, the mosque of Cristo de la Luz is from our point of view, a clear example of the interrelation between the different artistic styles that had been developing in Spain between the 5th and 11th centuries. As we have explained above, although the influence of the Islamic culture in Spanish art has always been considered as a very important one since the 8th century, we believe that the influence on the Andalusian art on the cultural and artistic background that the Arabs found in Andalusian Spain has not been studied and valued enough. In this case we find within a wrapping -facades, decoration and cover shapes- undoubtly Islamic, a plan sketch and an architecture structure coming from Europe and widely spread in the Iberian peninsula in the centuries prior to the arrival of the Arabs, and all of that using as an integrating element of Visigothic, Mozarabic and Islamic art, a kind of horseshoe arch that corresponds to the development of the Visigothic arch on behalf of the Arabs and Mozarabics in Al Andalus and that it was also utilized both, in Christian Spain as well as in great part of the Arab architecture in the north of Africa.

SUMMA ARTIS: Tomo XII
Arts & Civilisations de l’Islam: KÖNEMAN
L’Art Preroman Hispanique – L’Art Mozarabe: ZODIAQUE.

Mezquita del Cristo de la Luz
Las mezquitas del Cristo de la Luz y de las Tres Puertas de
Qayrawan
Mezquita Bab Al Mardon
Proporciones áureas de la Mezquita del Crito de la Luz.
Vista
Panorámica del Cristo de la Luz