Abu Ibrahim ibn Aflah Al Rakham

Tuesday, 01 April 2008

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Abu Ibrahim ibn Aflah Al-Rakham (the marble mason, who in September 1079, completed restoration works at the Mosque of Seville after it had been damaged weeks before.

More renowned, though, is Abu-l-Laith as-Siqilli, who succeeded Ali-Al-Ghumari as architect of the Giralda, which he completed in February 1198.

The Giralda, or minaret, which towered over the mosque of Seville, and still for the most part intact early in the twentieth century, is the principal ornament of its cathedral, and is the greatest monument to its fame. Scott offers a good non too technical description of the edifice, which is outlined here.

The base of Giralda is a square of fifty feet; its original height was three hundred. For eighty seven feet from the foundations the walls are of stone blocks fitted with the greatest nicety, and once polished to the smoothness of glass. The superstructure is of brick, and almost covered with graceful arabesque patterns in terra cotta. Each side is divided into six panels with the designs in bas relief, the panels resting upon ogival arches. In the central panels are a series of ajimezes or Muslim windows, whose compartments are separated by miniature columns of alabaster….. The minaret as originally designed was crowned with battlements, and was surmounted by another tower eight cubits in height, of similar plan but of much more elaborate ornamentation. Above the latter structure rose a bar sustaining four bronze balls of different sizes placed one above the other. The general colour of the building was a brilliant red due to the bricks of which it was principally composed.

Within this bright setting the sunken arabesques glowed with all the splendour of the richest damask. The interstitial portions of the designs were painted with scarlet, azure, green, and purple, the parts in relief were gilded

The interior of the famous minaret presents some extraordinary, not to say unique, architectural features. Its walls are nine feet in thickness at the base, and instead of decreasing in dimensions, become still more solid as they rise, until the capacity of the structure near the summit is but little more than half what it is at the bottom.