Alicia CARRILLO

Published in Isabel de Villena (1430-1490)

Keywords: Islamic architecture, Middle Ages, Muqarnas, Sasanian, Tripartite squinches, ʽAbbāsid Caliphate.

Islamic architecture presents a three-dimensional decoration system known as muqarnas. An original system created in the Near East between the second/eighth and the fourth/tenth centuries due to the fragmentation of the squinche, but it was in the fourth/eleventh century when it turned into a basic element, not only all along the Islamic territory but also in the Islamic vocabulary. However, the origin and shape of muqarnas has not been thoroughly considered by Historiography. This research tries to prove the importance of Sasanian Art in the aesthetics creation of muqarnas.