The volume “The Medieval Mediterranean between Islam and Christianity: Crosspollinations in Art, Architecture, and Material Culture” reveals that art objects – both Muslim and Christian – played a pivotal role in fostering peace and coexistence among the culturally diverse coastal communities of the medieval Mediterranean. This coexistence, spanning the continents of Europe, Asia, and Africa, did not arise from political treaties or diplomatic negotiations. Instead, it was cultivated through the power of artistic exchange, where objects of faith and beauty became instruments of dialogue and mutual respect. The coexistence of Christianity and Islam in the medieval Mediterranean, according to the volume, produced an interchange of knowledge in architecture and material culture that went well beyond religious and geographical boundaries. The use of Islamic objects in Christian contexts, the conversion of churches into mosques, and the mobility of craftsmen are only some manifestations of what the volume editors dub “aesthetic space,” the notion that aesthetic pleasure transcends boundaries, paving the way to a cross-religious experience and appreciation. In this volume, thirteen international scholars explore various aspects of pan-Mediterranean Christian-Islamic encounters in material culture and art, from textiles to precious oils, and from metalwork to ceramics, covering most of the Mediterranean, as well as parts of its extended hinterland, from Spain and Italy to Egypt and Georgia. Within this frame, one of the most relevant, yet underexplored lines of investigation is that of the “aesthetic space,” the notion that aesthetic pleasure transcends boundaries, paving the way to a cross-religious experience and appreciation.
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Review of The Medieval Mediterranean between Islam and Christianity: Crosspollinations in Art, Architecture, and Material Culture, edited by Sami Luigi De Giosa and Nikolaos Vryzidis. The American University in Cairo Press, Cairo New York (2025)/ Hardcover ISBN- 978 1 649 03187 7. Pages 307.
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Figure 1. Yakutiye Madrasa, Erzurum. Central muqarnas, Islamic ornamental three-dimensional architectural decoration, embellishing a church ceiling, 1310. Credit: Richard Piran McClary
Ceramic vessels originating in the Islamic world once adorned the facades of churches and other Christian monuments, while Christian symbols, such as the cross, embellished columns, slabs, and other architectural elements in numerous mosques and Islamic monuments.
This was the reality of the Medieval Mediterranean, a vast and vibrant region now explored in a new volume that presents compelling evidence of a historic harmony where Islam and Christianity engaged, intermingled, and coexisted through art.
The coexistence across this massive and influential region, spanning the coastal littorals of Europe, Asia, and Africa, was not the result of political or diplomatic rapprochement. Rather, it emerged from the power of art objects, both Muslim and Christian, which fostered cross-cultural dialogue and peaceful exchange.
In Arabic jargon, the Mediterranean is referred to as al-Baḥr al-Abyadh al-Mutawassiṭ or the White Middle Sea. Historically, Arabs referred to the sea as bahr al-Rum or Sea of the Romans.
“We wanted to depict the Mediterranean not simply as a land of clash, but as a crossroads where Christianity and Islam met, borrowed ideas, and reshaped each other,”
Said Dr. Sami L. De Giosa, the volume’s lead editor and an Islamic art and architectural historian at the University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates.
“It is clear from the evidence that this region was alive with goods of all sorts being carried across seas—textiles, metalwork, ceramics. These objects weren’t merely practical; they were signifiers of power, taste, and belonging, and they told stories of dialogue across faiths.”
The 300-page volume, comprising ten chapters, focuses exclusively on Muslim and Christian artifacts that crossed cultural boundaries even when religious doctrines did not. In their introduction, the editors coined the term “aesthetic space” to describe the multicultural role that art objects played in the medieval Mediterranean.
“In a time when the use of the terms Islamic and Christian for art outside the mosque and the church is becoming increasingly difficult, such a space can also be useful in renegotiating how religious and secular are associated,” the editors write.
The volume’s geographical scope includes nearly two dozen countries with Mediterranean coastlines. Its contributors concentrate on finely crafted metalwork, marble, stone, and dazzling textiles – objects admired regardless of their Christian or Muslim origins.
“The medieval Mediterranean wasn’t a neatly divided world of faith. It was a messy, fascinating, interconnected world where communities often recognized more in each other than we might expect,” explained Dr. De Giosa.
“We learned this by paying attention to what people built, touched, wore, and prayed with. These findings remind us that much of our perception about religious difference is, in fact, contemporary and not rooted in history, as traditionalist views often profess.”
Figure 2. Coptic capital with Christian cross and other symbols at the Mosque of al-Nasir Muhammad in the Citadel in Cairo. Credit: Sami Luigi De Giosa.
One striking example is the presence of a prominent Christian insignia – the cross – on the columns of the mosque of Sultan al-Nasir Muhammad in Cairo’s Citadel. Although the columns are historically seen as part of medieval spolia, the volume reconstructs the historical narratives behind these architectural objects to illustrate its central thesis of “aesthetic space.”
Many such architectural objects in the Medieval Mediterranean, one of the volume’s chapters shows, represented a “remarkable transportation” from a Christian to a Muslim cultural and architectural context. The chapter delves into the historical occurrence of Islamic slabs in some of Islam’s most fascinating mosques, presenting them as yet another classic example of Medieval spolia.
For instance, the chapter refers to the Byzantine slabs that were inserted into an imperial mosque in Istanbul. The slabs were originally part of the Hagia Sophia, then moved to the Mausoleum of Ottoman Sultan Sulaiman the Magnificent before their transportation to the mosque.
The volume uncovers both known and lesser-known cases of Christian and Muslim spolia in religious architecture. Though such incorporations may be viewed as sacrilegious by some – Muslims, for instance, traditionally reject the cross – the Christian artifact within a mosque is nonetheless revered within the aesthetic space.
Coptic textiles embroidered with Christian inscriptions, known as tiraz, are presented as examples of the “spoliation of ideas” in the material culture of the medieval Mediterranean. Christians who reprised the style of Islamic tiraz textiles, a luxury medieval Islamic cloth, occasionally transformed them into Christian objects, sometimes with Coptic inscriptions.
Figure 3. Silk samite with Islamic calligraphy lines the casket of Saints Pelagius and John the Baptist, possibly from Iberia, eleventh to early twelfth century. Credit: Museo de San Isidoro, record no. 3-089-002-00.
Most of the volume’s case studies aim to reconstruct the original contexts of such practices through rigorous textual analysis, comparison with material remnants, and impartial interpretation of visual evidence where documentation is lacking.
Figure 4. Detail, Andrea Mantegna, San Zeno Altarpiece, Verona, 1456–59, with St. John and St. Zeno both holding books with covers in the “Islamic style.” Credit: San Zeno Church, Verona.
The volume models the aesthetic space between Christianity and Islam, primarily through the transfer of objects across cultural and religious boundaries. This exchange was not one-directional: Muslims incorporated Christian artifacts into their worship and daily lives, just as Christians consumed Islamic goods despite their evident Islamic legacy.
The volume also examines the presence of Islamic ceramic bowls and dishes known as bacini, which were embedded in the facades of Christian monuments in Italy, France, and Germany. Despite their Islamic inscriptions and symbols, these objects were admired and preserved.
“The range, variety, and vast geographical extent of the vessels’ point of origin creates its own bacini Mediterranean microhistory,” the volume notes.
Rather than a chasm between faiths, the volume attests to a rich intermingling of Islam and Christianity in the Medieval Mediterranean. Its contributors uncover one piece of evidence after another showing how objects facilitated this cultural dialogue.
The book also explores “hybrid objects” – minute cultural and artistic works that passed through “three hands.” One chapter presents the fascinating story of an Orthodox liturgical object composed of Islamic and Latin elements.
Co-editor Nikolaos Vryzidis of the School of Applied Arts and Culture at the University of West Attica emphasizes that the Mediterranean and its hinterlands were zones of intense contact between diverse religions and languages during the Middle Ages.
“They offer a rich array of intercultural contexts, which is an ideal setting for the kind of interdisciplinary inquiry we sought to pursue.”
The intermingling of Christianity and Islam is clearly illustrated in a chapter of the volume where the authors examine the presence of Muslim muqarnas, also known as honeycomb vaulting, in churches located in Anatolia and Mosul, in present-day Iraq. Although neither region borders the Mediterranean coast, the volume considers them as part of its cultural hinterlands.
Muqarnas, three-dimensional Islamic architectural ornaments, appear in Christian contexts and are described by the editors as
“a contemporary and boundary-crossing decoration of the time, like so many architectural devices of the past, freely borrowed and imbued with specific meanings in different contexts.”
Figure 5. Upper cover, Psalterium Davidis (Book of Psalms by David), 1480–90. The cover and binding exhibit Islamic features. Credit: Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel, Cod. Guelf 39, Aug. 4,19.5 × 13 cm.
The contributors to this book show how porous the boundaries of faith and culture were in the medieval Mediterranean, particularly in relation to art and objects. Craftsmen, as the volume shows, followed a kind of “first-come, first-served” logic regardless of the religious connotation of objects.
“They (craftsmen) worked for whoever paid, not for one religion alone. A patron might be Christian, Muslim, or any other faith. What mattered was skill, style, and beauty,” said De Giosa. “In the medieval Mediterranean world, art and architecture weren’t guarded as exclusive symbols; they were shared, admired, and repurposed across communities. Another important aspect is our focus on lesser-known, neglected case studies.”
The volume presents a captivating array of micro-historical case studies in which two of the world’s largest religions, Islam and Christianity, meet, engage, and intermingle during a historical epoch from which both faiths, still the world’s majority religions, can now draw meaningful lessons.
“In relation to our volume, the appeal of its case studies is almost self-evident,”
The editors write, noting that the political turbulences following the 9/11 attacks, including the subsequent wars, events, and upheavals, have sparked significant academic interest in historical studies that explore the confrontation or coexistence of Islam and Christianity.
Sami Luigi De Giosa is an Assistant Professor of Fine Arts at the University of Sharjah. He received his PhD from SOAS University of London with a thesis on art in the Mamluk Sultanate. Before joining the University of Sharjah, he held postdoctoral and curatorial positions in different institutions in the UK and the Gulf, including the University of Oxford and the British Museum.
Nikolaos Vryzidis is an Assistant Professor in the History and Theory of Design – Textiles at the University of West Attica. He received his PhD from SOAS University of London with a thesis on the Greek Orthodox Church’s use of Ottoman textiles. He has published extensively on the history of textiles and material culture in the late medieval and early modern Mediterranean.
Introduction: The Aesthetic Space of Interreligious Encounter: Microhistorical Case Studies from the Medieval Mediterranean – Nikolaos Vryzidis, Sami Luigi De Giosa 1
Islamo-Christian Mediterranean Trade and Its Artistic Ramifications
Rituals and Liturgies: Objects, Meaning, and Decoration
Monumental Legacies
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