Muslim artists, Christian patrons and the painted ceilings of the Cappella Palatina (Palermo, Sicily, circa 1143 CE) فنانون_مسلمون_ورعاة_مسيحيون_والأسقف_المصورة_في_كابللا_بلاتينا_بلارمو_صقلية_حوالي_العالم_1143م

Journal article

The island of Sicily was conquered by Arab and Berber troops from North Africa during the 9th century. For the first hundred years, Muslim Sicily was a military base from which the Aghlabid emirs of Ifriqiyya launched successive attacks against mainland Italy. However, after 949, when the Fatimid caliph installed the Kalbid family as governors of Sicily, the capital of the island, Palermo, developed into a centre of Islamic culture and learning. By 973, the geographer Ibn Hawqal describes Sicily as the richest and most developed island held by the Muslims in the Mediterranean, and could even compare it to Umayyad Cordova. But Kalbid Sicily flourished for only about a century and, during the 1040s, the emirate disintegrated into several warring principalities, and the surrounding Christian powers took the opportunity to invade.

Authors: Johns, J

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyyah
• Journal: Hadeeth ad-Dar (Dār al-Athār al-Islamīya, Kuwait)
• Volume: 40
• Pages: 12-16
• Publication date: 2012-12-12
• Language: English and Arabic
• Keywords: Byzantine art; Norman Sicily; Romanesque art; Islamic art; SBTMR