' INFLUENCE ON EUROPE. Sicily. Southern Italy. Venice. and Spain were affected by the :Moham medan arts during the Middle Ages, and even as late as the Renaissance. Hence the use of the pointed and the horseshoe arch in many parts of Southern Europe. The cosmopolitan culture of the Norman Kings of Sicily had a large Moham medan element. The palaces of the kings—sueh as La Kuba, La Liza, Favara. and liaida—were imitated from those of the Eastern emirs and sultans; Sam Giovanni degli Eremiti seems an importation from Cairo. Mohammedan artists executed the wonderful stalactite ceiling in carved wood and probably also the geometric mosaics in the Palatine at Palermo. The famous . Ruffolo Palace at R:nreNcs and several cloisters (e.g. at Amalfi). show the spread of Eastern architectural forms in Campania. It is interest ing to see how in most cases where there are traces of Byzantine art, there are also signs of Mohammedan influence, and vice versa. 'This is nowhere more evident than in Venice, where both forms of Oriental art were so prominent. here
quite a flourishing school of :Mohammedan metal workers was established, existing as late as the sixteenth century. when Ilahniud El-Kurdi signed some exquisite pieces. The Italian artists who imitated them called themselves workers all' agemina, `in the Persian style,' and even Cellini confesses to have copied Oriental arms. in fact, the Renaissance metal-workers of the sixteenth century both in Italy and France owed more than their mediveval predecessors to Oriental design. Even more widespread and radical was the use and imitation in Europe of Oriental stuffs and fabrics, partly Byzantine, but especially Moham medan, wonderful not merely for beauty of ma terial, but for the figures and patterns woven or embroidered. The imported tents, baldachins, hangings. carpets, and the like, furnished the models for the European ateliers in Sicily, Rome, Venice, Belgium, and France.