The Alhambra, the residence of the Moorish kings of Granada, is supposed by some to have been founded by Mohammed Ibn Alluumar, the first ruler, who reigned from 1238 to 1273; according to others, was begun by his auccessor Mohammed II. (1273-1302), or by Nasser, and completed by Abu-l-hejaj in 1343. This highly interesting and important monument of western Arabian architecture is now rendered comparatively familiar to us, by descriptions and drawings, and by geometrical and pictorial illustrations of its principal parte and deco rations, not only in the elaborate works of Murphy, Jones, and Hassemer, but also in many drawings and publications of a more popular kind by Roberts, Lewis, and other able draftsmen, while several parts of the interior have been reproduced by casts and restorations in the C7stal Palace at Sydenham. Here therefore it need only be noticed briefly and generally : it is described, with cuts, under ALHAMBRA, in the Gi:oo. Dtv.
The Alhambra was a fortress palace, the outer.walls of which enclosed an area 2500 feet long and 650 wide. Its superb palace has suffered alike from wilful destruction and from neglect, yet its ruins are among the most romantic and most interesting in the world. What is left of it consists of two great courts or halls and several of smaller size. Of these the richest and most impressive is the Court of the Lions, which extends 100 feet from cast te, west, and is 60 feet wide : yet impressive as it still is, and gorgeous as it must have originally appeared, it is really composed of only the most seemingly fragile nusterials—wood covered with stucco. I ta general character and appearance will be best understood by the reproduction at the Crystal Palace ; but it neat be remembered in looking at the copy that whilst the original is of much larger size, the central fountain, from which it derives its name, is, in each, of the same dimensions. On each Bide of the Court of the Lions is a much entailer apartment, that on the north being known as the Hall of the Sisters, while on the tenth is the gorgeous Hall of the Abencerrages, reproduced of the actual dimensions by Mr. Jones at the Crystal Palace. At the east end stands the Hall of Judgment. Before the Hall of the Two Sisters are the Baths. West of the Court of the Lions, and at right angles to it, is the second great court, called the Court of the Alberca—an older and less ornamented building. There are other connected rooms and detached buildings to which it is sari. cienb to allude, while a third large court, probably a mosque, is said to have been removed to make room for the cold and formal palace erected by Charles V. adjoining the Court of the Alberca. The archi tectural character of the interior, on which almost exclusively the florid ornament is lavished, has been already spoken of, and the arches, pillars, tracery, diapering, &c., described. The Alhambra is considered, and justly, as the crowning work of Saracenic architecture in Europe; it marks a period when the style had reached the very verge of deco rative propriety, and it is probable that any further progress would have been towards mero voluptuous excess, and that the decline would have been swift and certain. Other remains of Saracenic build
ings are still numerous in all those parts of Spain which were occupied by the Moors, and some of them are of considerable interest. It is noteworthy, however, that the only approximation to a minaret, or to any of those light and lofty forms in which the Saracenic architects of the East delighted, is found in the Giralda at Seville ; and this bears more resemblance to an Italian campanile, it being a square of 45 feet, and rising undiminished to a height of 185 feet : the upper and smaller portion was added in 1568.
The earliest of the Egyptian buildings of which any portions re main is the Mosque of Amrou at Old Cairo, begun about A.D. 642, but greatly altered. if not rebuilt, about 60 years later. It is a nearly square building about 390 by 360 feet, surrounded on each side by colonnades or arcades, the columns of which, 245 in number, were taken from Byzantine and Roman buildings. The arches, as is usual in arcades in the Saracenic buildings of the East, have tie-beams, in this instance of wood. Of the original ornamentation little is left. A more important example of the style is the great mosque erected, by Ibn Tooloon at Cairo, towards the end of the 9th century, and which is still in a state of tolerable preservation. Like the preceding, it is a nearly square structure, the outer walls being 455 feet by 390; the great court, nearly 300 feet square, is said to have been designed by a Byzantine architect. Like all early Mohammedan buildings, it is built entirely of brick covered with stucco, and all the rich interior orna mentation is of stucco. The arches of the colonnade surrounding the great court are of the pointed horse-shoe form, and are borne on massive piers with attached shafts at the angles. The windows, mostly of pointed horse-shoe arches, are all filled with the pierced tracery described above, which is not only singularly graceful in design, but the effect of which is described as exceedingly cool and pleasing in such a climate. Other mosques in Cairo afford very interesting speci mens of this style of architecture of a later date ; as that of Barkook, erected about the middle of the 12th,ceutury, which has a fine dome, a lofty and very elegant minaret, and other ornamental features, and in which the pointed arch is employed with as much facility as in a Gothic cathedral. But a far more imposing building is the mosque of Hhasaneyn, or Hassan, which is of great size and height, very ;massive in construction, ad is crowned by/ a noble dome and two very handsome minarets, each 230 feet high. The mosque of El lloyed, erected in 1415, is remarkable for the richness of its interior.