142- Identity: the
building blocks of
2. Literature
and philosophy
3. Art and
architecture
4. Performing
arts
5. Cinema
and fashion
6. Media and
communications
7. Food and drink 8. Living culture:
the details of
Spain’s split Middle Ages personality, its loyalties torn
between Christianity and Islam, featured large in its
architectural development. Once the Visigoths’ brief
period in the sun was over, a raft of styles – Moorish,
Asturian, Romanesque, Gothic, Mozarabic and Mudéjar- overlapped and collaborated, leaving Spain with a
brilliant ragbag of buildings.
Simple pleasures: Visigothic buildings
Visigothic architecture couldn’t quite compete with
Roman efforts (which, incidentally, marauding Germanic
longhairs tried hard to destroy), yet it carried a certain
understated beauty.The new overlords brought
glimpses of innovation but essentially followed the
lessons of Roman building, linking the classical age of
columns and vaulting to the grand structures that would
rise up in the High Middle Ages. Visigothic architecture
did introduce Spain to one particular concept, the
horseshoe arch, as later replicated with enthusiasm
by the Moors.The Visigoths left behind a scattering
of modest churches, the most famous of which is at
Quintanilla de las Viñas, built around 690 a few miles
south of Burgos. Back in the seventh century, paintings,
lamps and fabrics would have brightened what today
seem like humble little church interiors.These isolated,
rural places of worship are simply the ones that
survived. Other, no doubt more elaborate buildings
in towns like Córdoba, Seville andToledo have long
since been flattened.3.2.2 How Goths, Asturians and Moors
built the Middle Ages