THE CALIPHAL EXPANSION OF THE GREAT MOSQUE OF CORDOBA: MESSAGES, FORMS AND FUNCTIONS

SUSANA CALVO CAPILLA

A well defined visual tradition representing the Umayyad caliphate of al-Andalus from the middle of the 10th century can be traced back when by analyzing the expansion of the Great Mosque of Cordoba ordered by al-Hakam II. Here we can see a rich and original formal language responding to the needs of the new political and religious reality which served to legitimize the power of the caliph and his government. In this building we find three elements that are interconnected: 1) the iconographical message represented using epigraphy and ornamentation; 2) the architectural forms specifically chosen to recreate the environment within the maqsura; and 3) the political and religious ceremonies that took place there.

ALEJANDRO DE LA CRUZ. A DISCIPLE OF MENGS IN ROMA

JORGE GARCÍA SÁNCHEZ y CÁNDIDO DE LA CRUZ ALCAÑIZ

In this article we intend to document the pictorial activity of Alejandro de la Cruz, as well as to bring to light documentation and unpublished works principally carried out during his Roman apprenticeship. Thanks to his master Anton Raphael Mengs, the artist travelled to Italy and obtained a stipend from the Real Academia de San Fernando; on his return to Spain in 1780, De la Cruz entered into the service of the infant Don Luis de Borbón and under the orders of Mariano Salvador Maella he restored the Royal Palace's collections of painting. The cathedral of Toledo and the Academia de San Luis of Saragossa were his last professional affiliations.

A VIEW OF THE GRANADA LANDSCAPE ORDERED BY THE COUNT OF MAULE TO THE ARTIST FERNANDO MARÍN TOWARDS 1798

ANTONIO GÁMIZ y ANTONIO ORIHUELA

At the end of the 18th century Nicolás de la Cruz y Bahamonde, the first count of Maule (1757-1828), made a long trip to Spain, Italy and France of which an extensive report was published. During his stay in Granada, Maule comissioned Fernando Marín to make two views of its landscape. These were previously believed to be lost. The authors have identified one of these pictures ordered by Maule, now in a private collection at Seville. The painting shows a panoramic view of the Alhambra and Albayzín, precisely locating the buildings of many convents and buildings no longer extant, and it also includes a portrait of count of Maule with Fray Sebastián Sánchez Sobrino, his frequent companion in his strolls throughout the city.

ART, TERRITORY AND NATION AT THE PENINSULAR WAR. ENGRAVINGS BY FRANCISCO POMARES AND BARTOLOMEO PINELLI

LUIS MARTÍN POZUELO

By 1816, two years after the end of the Peninsular War, two artists living in Rome, Francisco Pomares and Bartolomeo Pinelli, produced a collection of engravings dedicated to Pope Pius VII. The visual composition has great ideological interest, as the artists made the representation of the land a central part of their work. The attention to a precise and scientific cartographic representation of the territory was one of the main sites for the identification of the citizens with their nation. The territory was rigorously delimitated as a place in which to belong, to inhabit, to fight and to die.

ARTURO MELIDA'S MONUMENT TO CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS

DANIEL ORTIZ PRADAS

In 1878 the construction of the first monument to Christopher Colombus began in Spain. The present monument is by the architect Arturo Mélida, although there was a previous project of the 1860s by the sculptor José Piquer which was never made. Through the various drawings preserved of Mélida's project, we can observe a clear evolution from the use of an eclectic language to a historical language, inspired by Gothic Hispano-Flemish architecture, especially in San Juan de los Reyes in Toledo, whose restoration was undertaken a few years later by Mélida himself.

LÁZARO AS COLLECTOR

PORTRAITS OF ANTONIO DE SENTMENAT Y CASTELLÁ BY JOSÉ LÓPEZ ENGUÍDANOS

ISMAEL GUTIÉRREZ PASTOR

This article examines a group of portraits of the cardinal Don Antonio de Sentmenat y Castellá, who took the office of Patriarch of the Indies between 1784 and 1806, and worked closely with the Royal Chapel, the highest ecclesiastical representation of the Spanish court at the time. Taking as a starting point the analysis of one of these portraits, still belonging to his descendants, four more independent portraits can be identified, one of them signed by the painter Jose López Enguídanos. On the ground of the technical and typological analysis of the group, López Enguídanos portraits may be placed in the context of the most current European artistic trends at the end of the XVIII century.