"Saracenical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... threads by oriental weavers, especially those of Persia, Syria and parts of southern Europe and northern Africa under the domination of the Saracens, to whom the earlier germs, so to speak, of brocading may be traced. Of such is the 11th or 12th century Siculo-Saracenic specimen in fig. 1, in which the heads only of the pairs of animals and birds are broched with gold thread. Another sort of brocaded material is indicated in fig. 2, taken from a part of a sumptuous Siculo-Saracenic weaving produced in coloured silks and gold threads at the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... themselves in such a manner during their visit, and in going and returning, as to conciliate the good-will of their enemies. At any rate, after their visit there was no difficulty, and many in the camp, who had been too distrustful of Saracenic faith to venture with them, now began to join the other parties that were forming, for all had a great curiosity to see the city for the sake of which they had encountered so many dangers ...
— Richard I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... by Sir John Hawkins to be of Moorish or Saracenic origin. "The characteristic of the Chacone is a bass, or ground, consisting of four measures, wherein three crotchets make the bar, and the repetition thereof with variations in the several parts, from the beginning to the end of the air, which ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... different sultans, that it may be called a modern structure; and of the houses, I do not think there exists one older than four centuries; it is not, therefore, in this place, that the traveller must look for interesting specimens of architecture or such beautiful remains of Saracenic structures as are still admired in Syria, Egypt, Barbary, and Spain. In this respect the ancient and far-famed Mekka is surpassed by the smallest provincial towns of Syria or Egypt. The same may be said with respect ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 358 - Vol. XIII, No. 358., Saturday, February 28, 1829 • Various
... VIII. that only the best materials that could be found in our country or that of other lands were employed, and that the art that was used on them was the best that could be learnt or given. The original fabrics often came from Byzantium or were of Saracenic origin. ...
— Chats on Old Lace and Needlework • Emily Leigh Lowes
... For he alone of all Framley believed that David and Hope had not thrown away the Quaker drab, the shovel hat and the poke bonnet, and had gone forth fashionable, worldly and an hungered, among the fleshpots of Egypt. There was talk of gilded palaces, Saracenic splendours and dark ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... unprecedented in the history of the world. When it befell a great united empire, enervated by long years of unwarlike habits among its chief citizens, it entailed ruin, but ruin deferred through centuries, thanks to the provision made beforehand by a great general and statesman. The Saracenic and Turkish invasions, on the contrary, after generations of advance, were first checked, and then rolled back; for they fell upon peoples, disunited indeed by internal discords and strife, like the nations of Europe to-day, but still nations of warriors, ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan
... a model of the facade of an Italian palazzo of the sixteenth century. If one questioned Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown at dinner in regard to this (which was only a fair return for drinking five dollar champagne), she answered that the facade was cinquecentisti, but that it reproduced also the Saracenic mullioned window of the Siennese School. But if the guest said later in the evening to Mr. Rasselyer-Brown that he understood that his house was cinquecentisti, he answered that he guessed it was. After which remark and an interval of silence, ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock
... the Ommiades who had escaped made his way to Spain and there re-established the power of his family, with Cordova as a centre, about A.D. 755. Thus it was that the Saracenic power was divided into an ...
— On the Antiquity of the Chemical Art • James Mactear
... verdant and majestic fronds of the palm-trees. He gazed at these solitary monarchs and shuddered. They recalled to his mind the graceful shafts, crowned with long weaving leaves, which distinguish the Saracenic columns of the cathedral of Arles. The thought overcame him, and when, after counting the trees, he threw his eyes upon the scene around him, an agony of despair convulsed his soul. He saw a limitless ocean. The sombre sands of the desert stretched out till lost to sight in ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... influences. So, also, the learning and science of the Arabians were in a far less degree the result of original invention and genius, than the reproduction, in an altered form, of the Greek philosophy and the Greek lore, acquired by the Saracenic conquerors together with their acquisition of the provinces which Alexander had subjugated nearly a thousand years before the armed disciples of Mahomet commenced their career in the East. It is well ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... that our English zoophilomania—our cult of lap-dogs—smacks of degeneracy does not mean that I sympathize with the ill-treatment of beasts which annoys many visitors to these parts and has been attributed to "Saracenic" influences. Wrongly, of course; one might as well attribute it to the old Greeks. [Footnote: Whose attitude towards animals, by the way, was as far removed from callousness as from sentimentalism. We know how those Hellenic oxen fared who had laboured to draw up ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... horrible institution, the Holy Inquisition. They were doing their best to strike down the universal monarchy of Spain, which they described as a bloodthirsty, insatiable, insolent, absolute dominion of Saracenic, Moorish Christians. They warred with a system which placed inquisitors on the seats of judges, which made it unlawful to read the Scriptures, which violated all oaths, suppressed all civic freedom, trampled, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... so that a degree of historical accuracy is now attained in Opera costume, which materially assists the illusion; and no such anachronism is visible in Covent Garden as in a certain theatre across the Thames, where, instead of the Saracenic minarets of Cairo, this gorgeous Arab city is represented by pyramids, obelisks, and sphynxes. The painting-room of Covent Garden is a light and lofty apartment at the top of the house, and the name of Mr ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 443 - Volume 17, New Series, June 26, 1852 • Various
... said to him: "My good man, I hear from many here that you are the wisest and in divine affairs the most profound of men, and on that account I would like to know from you which of the three good religions you consider the true one: the Jewish, the Saracenic, or the Christian?" The Jew, who really was a wise man, saw too clearly that the Sultan desired to catch him in his words in order to raise against him some question, and decided not to praise any one of the religions more than the other, so ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... narrow room, lined on both sides with cabinets of great age and curious workmanship, oaken furniture belonging to various periods, pictures restored and pictures cracked and faded, cases filled with dainty objects of gold and silver, brass work from Moorish and Saracenic craftsmen, tall suits of armor, helmets and weapons that had clashed in battle hundreds of years before, and other things too numerous to mention, all of a genuine value that put them beyond the ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... Porch.—This portion of the building is the work of Morwent, who was Abbot from 1421-1437. The rich front of what Bonner called "Saracenic work," was formerly disfigured by an uninteresting dial with the motto Pereunt et imputantur. This was removed at the Restoration, when the canopies were restored, and niches filled with statues by ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Gloucester [2nd ed.] • H. J. L. J. Masse
... of the Friar. The Rev. Charles Forster, in his Mahometanism Unveiled, a work of some learning, but more extravagance, after speaking of Roger Bacon as "strictly and properly an experimentalist of the Saracenic school," goes indeed so far as to assert that he "was the undoubted, though unowned, original when his great namesake drew the materials of his famous experimental system." (Vol. II. pp. 312-317.) But the resemblances in their ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... the Saracens half a century (647-698 A.D.) to win 'their way along the coast of Africa as far as the Pillars of Hercules';[25] and, as Gibbon tells us, it was not till the Commander of the Faithful had prepared a great expedition, this time by sea as well as by land, that the Saracenic dominion was definitely established. It has been generally assumed that the Arabian conquerors who, within a few years of his death, spread the faith of Mohammed over vast regions, belonged to an essentially non-maritime race; and little or no stress has ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge
... textiles were ornamented by designs, which usually show interlaces and animal forms, and sometimes conventional floral ornament. Patterns originated in the East, and, through Byzantine influence, in Italy, and Saracenic in Spain, they were adopted and modified by Europeans. In 1295 St. Paul's in London owned a hanging "patterned with wheels and two-headed birds." Sicilian silks, and many others of the contemporary textiles, display variations of the "tree of life" pattern. ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... then prevailed in France) to exhibit French heroes in Zaire. In Alzire Voltaire went still farther, and treated a subject in modern history never yet touched by his countrymen. In the former piece he contrasted the chivalrous and Saracenic way of thinking; in this we have Spaniards opposed to Peruvians. The difference between the old and new world has given rise to descriptions of a truly poetical nature. Though the action is a pure invention, I recognise in this piece more historical and more of what we may ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... third volume for May. But, not content with a subject so wide, he branches off to treat of divers other questions relating to Oriental history, such as the Essenes and the origin of Monasticism, the Saracenic persecution of the Eastern Christians, and the introduction of the Arabic notation into Europe. On this last head the Bollandists anticipate some modern speculations.[10] He maintains, on the authority of a Greek manuscript in ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... gold-workers of all time. Like shawls of Cashmere, Greek statuary, Gothic architecture, and Saracenic tracery, Etruscan gold-work stands absolutely alone,—the result of an artistic instinct deeper than any rules or any instruction, and therefore not to be improved or repeated. It is characterized by the most subtile ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... the Saracens," and unauthentic Works.—At the end of a late edition of Washington Irving's Life of Mahomet, those "who feel inclined to peruse further details of the life of Mahomet, or to pursue the course of Saracenic history," are referred to Ockley. Students should be aware of the character of the histories they peruse. And it appears, from a note in Hallam's Middle Ages (vol. ii. p. 168.), that Wakidi, from whom Ockley translated his work, was a "mere fabulist," ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 48, Saturday, September 28, 1850 • Various
... church built by that emperor, in the earlier part of the fourth century, over the alleged tomb of our Saviour at Jerusalem.[99] For notices of the prevalence of the pointed arch in early Eastern and in Saracenic architecture, see Fergusson's Handbook, p. 380, ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... stand throughout its existence the serious rival of Rome. Its arts and crafts became famous, —thanks largely to Mani; in architecture it revived the Achaemenian tradition, with modifications of its own; and passed the result on to the Arabs when they rose, to be the basis of the Saracenic Style. There was a fairly extensive literature: largely religious, but with much also in belles lettres, re-tellings of the old Iranian sagas, and the like. Its history is mainly the record of gigantic wars with Rome; these were diversified later by tussles with the Turks, Ephthalites ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... impress in Spain, and that the Crusaders brought back from the Orient, among many other novelties, the custom of encouraging minstrelsy. The Arabian bards sang chiefly of love, as they well might in a land where female loveliness received such excessive worship. At the Saracenic courts, the bards were ever ready to win gratitude, and even more substantial rewards, by praising the latest favourite at the expense of former beauties. Provence, with its dazzling sun and glowing climate, possessed a striking resemblance to the Eastern countries, ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... mouldings and sculpture wrought into the modern buildings. In the neighbourhood are seen the walls of an edifice apparently Roman, as also the ruins of two small towers which may with equal certainty be traced to the age of Saracenic domination. Souf can boast of nearly five hundred inhabitants, all rigid Mohammedans, and remarkable for a surly ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... etc., are in general picturesquely situated, and are built in a massive and sometimes even in a magnificent style. The churches and houses are all of hewn stone, and exhibit the various styles of architecture of the builders; the Saracenic, the Norman-Gothic, or the later Spanish taste. Sometimes the styles are fantastically intermixed; but the whole, to the architect, is extremely interesting. Flat roofs and projecting stone balconies from the upper windows are perhaps the most ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... comfortable quarters overlooking the semi-tropical public gardens. The houses and buildings generally resemble those at Naples, and the churches are second only to those of Rome in their magnificence. One might almost fancy one's self in the far East, there are so many surroundings of a Moorish and Saracenic character, and many of the names are quite oriental. The cactus, palm, and citron trees, tropical flowers and sunny skies, carry out the impression. There is no matter for wonder in this, however, as the Saracens made Palermo ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... at b is rarely found in the north: its perfection is in the Lombardic Gothic; and branches of it, good and bad according to their use, occur in Saracenic work. ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... system of perpetual harassing warfare in which they were adepts. A surena, or general of the first rank, appeared in the field, at the head of a strong body of Persian horse, and accompanied by a sheikh of the Saracenic Arabs, known as Malik (or "King") Rodoseces. Retreating as Julian advanced, but continually delaying his progress, hanging on the skirts of his army, cutting off his stragglers, and threatening every unsupported detachment, this active ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... of Satan, nay even warriors themselves who had wrought prodigies of valour and shed their blood in order to exterminate that religion, could not regard its prevalence with indifference, nor endure the thought that it should survive the ruin of the capital of the Saracenic empire. Bitter complaints were made to the queen on account of the impunity with which such excesses against her authority were committed. To her indulgence the principal persons of the state attributed the obstinacy of the Moors who persisted ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous
... old Lobbs being very hungry was monstrous cross. Nathaniel Pipkin could hear him growling away like an old mastiff with a sore throat; and whenever the unfortunate apprentice with the thin legs came into the room, so surely did old Lobbs commence swearing at him in a most Saracenic and ferocious manner, though apparently with no other end or object than that of easing his bosom by the discharge of a few superfluous oaths. At length some supper, which had been warming up, ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... traveling. Thou wilt have pleasure and profit; thou wilt enlarge thy prospects, cultivate thyself, and acquire friends. It is better to be dead, than, like an insect, to remain always chained to the same spot of earth.' In the Middle Ages, and especially among the members of the enlightened Saracenic race, the instinct of travel was mainly an instinctive desire for education. There was no other school of knowledge so complete and practical, in the dearth of books and the absence of other than commercial intercourse between the ends of the earth, I fancy ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... most of the provinces known to the ancients west of the Euphrates, and together formed an empire in comparison with which the Assyrian and Egyptian monarchies, and even the Grecian conquests, were vastly inferior. The Saracenic conquests in the Middle Ages were not to be compared with these, and the great empires of Charlemagne and Napoleon could be included in less than half the limits. What a proud position it was to be a Roman emperor, whose will was the law over the whole civilized world! Well may the Roman ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... the architect. One massive dome or archway, a hundred feet in diameter, rises to the surface. Its front is carved in elaborate tracery and crusted with serpulae, looking like the fret-and flower-work that covers Saracenic architecture. Looking through this into the violet ambuscade, the eye falls upon colonnades, light slender shafts a foot in diameter, that seem to support the paly-golden, lustrous roof. It is curiously like a vast ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... the Druses but conquered in the time of Daher Prince of Acre by the Turks. The place is supposed to be the ancient Baal Berith. Here we stay a week. Beirut is a curious town. The architecture is substantial, perfectly different from any seen in other parts of Asia until you arrive in Syria; quite Saracenic, arches in abundance and curious tesselated pavements of coloured stones. But this is not Turkish, though now in possession of the Turks, but the architecture of its former inhabitants remains. I made short excursions into the country with some English ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... style, I do not see why one method of design should be more suited than another for the bath. Having become popularly known as the "Turkish" bath, an Eastern or Saracenic style has been often adopted in the past. And, inasmuch as such style is essentially an interior style of architecture, there is something to be said on this score. It is, moreover, a style in which surface decoration pertains rather than modelled work, or, at least, the modelling ...
— The Turkish Bath - Its Design and Construction • Robert Owen Allsop
... often to see, as if from the brow of a great hill. I see the rich valley below, with magnificent woods and glades, and a broad river reflecting the sunset; and in the midst of the valley, the vast Saracenic pile, with gilded minarets blazing in the golden light. I have since then seen many splendid habitations, but none in the least equal to that. I cannot even yet discard the idea that somewhere in this world there ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... impress of their occupation in many Arabic words which still mark the local patois; and as a number of the fugitives were captured and reduced to slavery, intermarrying in the course of time with the native population, the Moorish type is still very noticeable amongst the peasantry. Freed from the Saracenic yoke, the Nicois lived in peace for nearly two centuries, being only disturbed from time to time by the unwelcome visitations of pirates. Later on, toward the middle of the thirteenth century, like most other Southern and Italian cities, Nice fell a victim to the constant quarrels of the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... as blank as that of the horse or the beaver. But we are not yet done with Ham's descendants. The great Turko-Tartar generals, Timour, Ghenghis Kahn and Tamerlane, the latter called in history, the scourge of God—the Saracenic general, the gallant, the daring, the chivalrous, the noble Saladin, he who led the Paynim forces of Mahomet, against the lion-hearted Richard, in the war of the Crusades, all, all these were children of Ham. Mahomet himself, the founder of an empire, ...
— The Negro: what is His Ethnological Status? 2nd Ed. • Buckner H. 'Ariel' Payne
... included in these headings of Travel and Foreign Countries are of considerable interest for the bibliographer no less than for the traveller. Who has confined his attentions to the early Saracenic literature of North Africa? There is a number of works dealing with it, chiefly sixteenth-century Spanish books, and all are of considerable value. Luis del Marmol's 'Descripcion general del Affrica' is in three folio volumes, of which the first two were printed at ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... afterthought meant to relieve, on emergency, the overcharged large one; its workmanship and style showed it plainly to have been added when the edifice had already become an antiquity. This altogether peculiar and most interesting building has also suffered still later interpolations: a Saracenic frieze runs round the wall; so that the hands of three widely different nations have been busy on the mountain theatre, which received its first audience twenty-five centuries ago! The view obtained from this spot has ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... Transitional buildings. The main constructive arches are pointed; the windows are round-headed in the eastern part, pointed in the western. The cloister and chapter-house have round arches; the remains of the cloister have small single shafts, not the Saracenic coupling to which we have got used in Italy, Sicily, and Southern Gaul. In an odd position to the west of the church, forbidding any west front, is an undercroft with columns with good, but not very rich, twelfth-century capitals, clearly of ...
— Sketches of Travel in Normandy and Maine • Edward A. Freeman
... above a soft and solemn repetition, which will sound as though voices were repeating the psalm in the skies. Nothing finer or more lovely in architecture exists than this faultless monument, this ideal of Saracenic art. ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... excitement were demanded, and soon, in response to the call, minstrels began to roam from castle to castle, from court to court, telling long stories of heroism and singing light songs of love. A spark from the Saracenic schools and poets of Spain may have flitted into Provence to kindle the elements of modern literature into its first development, the songs of the Troubadours. Almost contemporary were the lays of the Minnesingers in Germany and the romances of the Trouveres in Northern France. Beneath ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... see mixed motives. To regain Jerusalem was also to be enriched by Saracenic spoils. To give up a petty government or heritage in Europe might lead to dominion in Asia. These things were promised by the authority of pope and general. Many great names acceded to Godfrey's roster, and aided in leading a fairly disciplined and restrained army toward Palestine. The ...
— Peter the Hermit - A Tale of Enthusiasm • Daniel A. Goodsell
... stared with wondering eyes, As well he might, on a huge pavilion: 'Twas clothed with stuffs of a hundred dyes, Blue, purple, orange, pink, vermilion; And there were quaint devices traced All round in the Saracenic manner; And the top, which gleamed like gold, was graced With the drooping folds of a silken banner; And on the poles, in silent pride, There sat small doves of white enamel; And the vail from the entrance was drawn aside, And flung on the humps ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... little ones fled with him in disguise to Cadiz, with the precious Arabic Scriptures rolled round their waists, and took shelter with an English merchant, who had had dealings in sword-blades with Senor Miguel, and had been entertained by him in his beautiful Saracenic house at Ronda with Eastern hospitality. This he requited by giving them the opportunity of sailing for England in a vessel laden with Xeres sack; but the misery of the voyage across the Bay of Biscay in a ship fit for nothing but wine, was excessive, and creatures ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... edifices: the idea of the arch was borrowed from the Byzantine style. One of their most famous monuments is the mosque at Cordova. The ruins of the Alhambra, in Spain, a palace and a fortress, illustrate the richness and elegance of the Saracenic style of building. ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... of the Mamelukes, and the Ottoman occupation of Kahira in 1517, caused no cessation of mosque building; but there was a departure from the Saracenic models, and also a still more marked return to the congregational form than had been witnessed in the days of the great builders just noted. This is evident in the last great mosque of the modern period, that of Mohammed Ali (the independent monarch), begun by that ruler, but not completed until ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck
... artificial forms may be arranged in a hierarchy like natural ones, by reference to the absolute values of their contours and masses. Herein lies the superiority of a Greek to a Chinese vase, or of Gothic to Saracenic construction. Thus although every useful form is capable of proportion and beauty, when once its type is established, we cannot say that this beauty is always potentially equal; and an iron bridge, for instance, although it certainly possesses ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana
... La Champagne leaves its long wake across the Atlantic, and we journey down from Paris to the little city of the Maid of Orleans; wander to Tours, the approximate scene of the great Saracenic defeat; drive along the quays of Bordeaux, and visit its vineyards and finally come on, in the luxurious cars of the Midi line, to the shores of Cantabria and the ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... remained erect but a Moorish fortress, built up with fragments of the huge stones of the old Phoenicians, intermixed with the friezes and sculptures of Graecising Rome, and the whole fabric in the graceful Saracenic taste; while completing the strange mixture of periods, another of those mournful French banners drooped from the battlements, and around it spread the white tents of the armies of France and the Two Sicilies, like it with trailing banners; an orphaned plague-stricken ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... time of Charlemagne, the school of Salerno thought so highly of Sage that they originated the dictum quoted above of Saracenic old pharmacy, but they ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... Saracenic music of the challengers concluded 20 one of those high and long flourishes with which they had broken the silence of the lists, it was answered by a solitary trumpet, which breathed a note of defiance from the northern extremity. All eyes were turned to see ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... generation which has read, with a spirit attuned to the pleasant influences of an Academic and a Saracenic art, the writings of John Henry Shorthouse, and ever discovering them to contain philosophic importance and pyschologic expression decidedly above the astuteness and ability of average writers; and having usually in them remarked wisdom, council and knowledge reminiscent of the inspired logicial ...
— Original Letters and Biographic Epitomes • J. Atwood.Slater
... gilt in that honeycomb style prevalent in the Saracenic buildings; the walls were hung with leather stamped in rich and vivid patterns; the floor was a flood of mosaic; about were statues of negroes of human size with faces of wild expression, and holding in their outstretched ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... The congregation was organized in 1845, first holding services in the Grand Street Court Room, thence moving in 1850 to a remodelled Unitarian Church in Chrystie Street, and again, in 1856, to a Baptist Church in Twelfth Street. The present structure, considered one of the finest examples of Saracenic architecture in the country, was designed by Leopold Eidlitz, and completed at a cost of six hundred thousand dollars. The materials are brown and yellow sandstone, with black and red tiles alternating on the roof. Within, near the entrance, are ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... medley of coloured beads and baskets, rich embroideries, stuffed animals, and large quantities of arms and armour, so-called trophies of the wars in the Sudan. Though most of these relics are spurious, genuine helmets and coats of mail of old Persian and Saracenic times may occasionally be found, while large numbers of spears and swords are undoubtedly ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Egypt • R. Talbot Kelly
... have an electrotype copy from such a dish, the original of which is in Manchester. The device is like No. 4. of those of CLERICUS (No. 3. p. 44.); but two circles of inscription extend round the central device (the Grapes of Escol), in characters which are supposed to be Saracenic. The inner inscription is five times, the outer seven times, repeated in the round. I see by the Archaeological Journal, No. 23, for Sept. 1849 (pp.295-6.), that at the meeting of Archaeological Institute, on the 1st June last, Mr. Octavius Morgan, M.P., exhibited ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.01.12 • Various
... give rise to the suspicion, that she was a woman—At his death this suspicion was confirmed;...object speedily found a refuge both from the taunts of the brute multitude, and from the...of her grief in the same grave that contained her lover.—He had bought one of the Sporades, & fitted up a Saracenic castle which accident had preserved in some repair with simple elegance, & it was his intention to dedicate the remainder of his life to undisturbed ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... points out the remarkable analogy that marks the Hebrew race as descendants of Isaac and the Arab race as the descendants of Ishmael, from whom sprung the Saracenic people. These are the only two races that have gone on in their purity from their beginning. They intermarry only among themselves and have, alike, the same customs and habits as their fathers. The sculptured faces of the Hebrew on the ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... surroundings it is easy to imagine one's self at Granada, in far-off Spain, and it seems almost natural to look about for the Alhambra. An air of rude grandeur reigns over these houses, the architecture being Gothic and Saracenic. In the more ancient portions of the town little picturesque balconies of iron or wood jut out from the second-story windows, where the houses rise to the dignity of two stories. From these balconies hang little naked children, like small performers upon the trapeze, ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... look that attracted the foreigners or the foreigners who gave it the foreign look. But on this particular morning the effect seemed singularly bright and clear. Between the open square and the sunlit leaves and the statue and the Saracenic outlines of the Alhambra, it looked the replica of some French or even Spanish public place. And this effect increased in Syme the sensation, which in many shapes he had had through the whole adventure, the eerie sensation of having strayed into a new world. As a fact, he had ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... the rich art it once enshrined, and the rose gardens of the Palazzo Rufolo might enchant Hafiz himself. The terrace on the very crest of the mountain commands one of the wonderful views of the world. The cloistered colonnades of this old Saracenic palace reveal views even to the plains of Paestum. There are rare mosaics and fragments of bronzes and ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... beautiful pointed arches." This then is the hypothesis of Dr. Milner towards the settlement of the controverted origin of the pointed or English style of architecture. It is, probably, the most reasonable of all solutions. Sir Christopher Wren's account of a Saracenic origin was vague and unsupported; and Warburton's deduction from groves and interlacing boughs, though ingeniously illustrated by the late Sir James Hall, has more prettiness than probability. Dr. Milner's "intersecting hypothesis," as it is technically termed, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 570, October 13, 1832 • Various
... San Remo begins with Saracenic inroads from Corsica and Sardinia in the ninth century, to which Nizza, Oneglia, and Genoa owed their walls. But before this time the wild Ligurian coast had afforded hermitages to the earlier bishops of Genoa; to Siro who became its apostle, to Romolo who was destined to give his ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... of glowing gold He hates—the generous king, the bold! He who four score towers laid low, Ta'en from the Saracenic foe. Before upon Sicilian plains, Shield joined to shield, the fight he gains, The victory at Hild's war game; And now the ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... Bagdad, tiraz being the generic name for ornamental tissues and costumes made with them. Spangles (those pretty little discs of gold, silver, or polished steel, used in certain embroidery for dainty glinting effects) were a Saracenic invention; and Arabic letters often took the place of letters in the Roman characters for use in inscriptions upon embroidered robes and Middle Age tapestries, their decorative value being so much greater. The book of crafts by Etienne ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... and science of the Arabians were in a far less degree the result of original invention and genius than the reproduction, in an altered form, of the Greek philosophy and the Greek lore acquired by the Saracenic conquerors, together with their acquisition of the provinces which Alexander had subjugated, nearly a thousand years before the armed disciples of Mahomet commenced their career in ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... incredible colours in which painters array the fiery hills of Moab and the Desert, and one could not believe them for ever uninhabited, for on them rose, as in the East, the similitude of stately fortresses, not the grey castellated towers of feudal Europe, but gay, massive, Saracenic architecture, the outgrowth of the solid rock. They were vast ranges, apparently of enormous height, their colour indescribable, deepest and reddest near the pine-draped bases, then gradually softening into wonderful tenderness, till the highest summits rose all flushed, and with an illusion ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... Byron's—Marino Faliero—the erection of the ducal palace is sometimes falsely ascribed. Founded in the year 800, A.D., the ducal palace was afterwards destroyed five times, and each time arose from its ruins with increasing splendor until it became, what it is now, a stately marble building of the Saracenic style of architecture, with a grand staircase and noble halls, adorned with pictures by Titian, Tintoretto, Paul Veronese, and other ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... border pattern is a band of weaving about two inches in width, Saracenic work. It is woven in coloured silks and linen thread upon the actual warp threads of the garment that it decorates. The weft threads were probably omitted for the space of one and a half inches when the fabric was being made in order that some ornamentation might ...
— Embroidery and Tapestry Weaving • Grace Christie
... excused themselves on the ground that it had never been tried before. Probably it was a novelty imported to the place by some of the people who had been employed by Europeans in Jerusalem; and yet I have always found that the old Saracenic houses of the Effendis in Jerusalem have all of them chimneys; and the word for chimney is well ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... the responsible adviser of the crown. The Palais Royal, the Palais Luxembourg, the Trianon, and Versailles were alternately scenes of excesses which would have disgraced the reigns of the most degenerate of Saracenic caliphs. So vile was the court, that a celebrated countess one day said, at a public festival, that "God, after having formed man, took the mud which was left, and made the souls ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... with its shipping. Its palaces of semi-Moorish origin were occupied by a wealthy and luxurious nobility. The vast cathedral had been finished a century before. The tower "La Giralda," three hundred and forty feet in height, is to this day one of the greatest marvels in Christendom, and with its Saracenic ornament and its "lace work in stone" is beyond all compare. The royal palace of the Alcazar, designed by Moorish architects, rivalled the Alhambra, and was filled with the finest workmanship of Grenada. There were one hundred and forty churches, of ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement
... places there are the remains of matting between the courses. At the highest part we found another carefully cemented Sehrij, or underground cistern, with two sharp-topped arches divided by a tall column, Saracenic certainly and not Doric:[EN125] above it a circular aperture, arched round with the finest bricks, serves to lighten the superstructure. It communicates to the north with a Hammam, whose plan is easily traced by the double ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... minor variations in construction or differences in power, they may all be reduced to two classes, viz. great slings and great crossbows. And this is equally true of all the three great branches of mediaeval civilisation—European, Saracenic, and Chinese. To the first class belonged the Trebuchet and Mangonel; to the second, the Winch-Arblast ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... seem as if they must look into chapels flooded with devotional sunsets!—what flying buttresses, and gable-ends, and niches with saints!—But stop! 'tis a Moorish iniquity; for here, as I live, is a Saracenic arch; which, for aught I know, may lead ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... disgraced by vulgar ornaments, in which respect they surpass even the worst specimens at Naples! Gilt stucco, cut and stamped into flowery compartments, shows off like a huge twelfth cake! but the Matrice or Duomo, and the Saracenic Chapel of the Palazzo Reale, and the cathedral of Monreale, four miles beyond the town, are noble exceptions; these in their several ways are all interesting, both within and without. The old Siculo-Norman archway of Monreale, and its fine bronze gates crusted with a beautiful ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... the pavilion. Here they examined the contents of the portfolio:—they were very rich, for it contained drawings of all kinds, and almost of every celebrated place in the vicinity of the Mediterranean shores; Saracenic palaces, Egyptian temples, mosques of Damascus, and fountains of Stamboul. Here was a Bedouin encampment, shaded by a grove of palms; and there a Spanish Senorita, shrouded in her mantilla, glided along the Alameda. There was one circumstance, ...
— Sketches • Benjamin Disraeli
... magnificent future,[FN311] when railways and canals shall connect it with Europe. The city of palaces and government offices, hotels and pavilions, mosques and colleges, kiosks and squares, bazars and markets, pleasure grounds and orchards, adorned with all the graceful charms which Saracenic architecture had borrowed from the Byzantines, lay couched upon the banks of the Dijlah-Hiddekel under a sky of marvellous purity and in a climate which makes mere life a "Kayf"—the luxury of tranquil enjoyment. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... under the name of Saracenic millet, as a thing which came from India, and was first brought into Italy in his own time. Herodotus speaks of its cultivation by the Babylonians. The Saracens used it in the fourteenth century for making bread, as do the Lucchese ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... Northern and Central Italy during the period of Lombard ascendency.[10] The Tuscans never forgot the domes of their remote ancestors; the Romans adhered closely to Latin traditions; the Southerners were affected by Byzantine and Saracenic models. In many instances the geology of the neighbourhood determined the picturesque features of its architecture. The clay-fields of the valley of the Po produced the brickwork of Cremona, Pavia, Crema, Chiaravalle, and Vercelli. ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... sometimes present at the discourses and disputations of the University; but he took care to search out for himself the truth in the word of God and in the traditions of the Church. . . . Having found out, during his travels in the East, that a Saracenic sultan had collected a quantity of books for the service of the philosophers of his sect, he was shamed to see that Christians had less zeal for getting instructed in the truth than infidels had for getting themselves made dexterous in falsehood; ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... unexpectedly—for he did not know that he was to be the hero of one of Disraeli's novels—he resolved to 'create a paradise.' He bought a Palladian pile, with a large estate and beautiful gardens. In this beautiful scene he intends to erect a Saracenic palace full of the finest works of modern and ancient art; and in time he hopes to 'create a scene which may rival in beauty and variety, though not in extent, the villa of Hadrian, whom I have always considered the most accomplished and sumptuous character of antiquity.' He has already ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... dulness, and bears no trace of the smiling prosperity of the adjacent country: the shops are poor and empty, there are no signs of business, and the streets swarm with beggars. The interior of the Duomo is a fine specimen of Gothic: the exterior is Greek, Gothic, and Saracenic jumbled together in vile taste: it contains nothing very interesting. The palace is like other palaces, very fine and so forth; and only remarkable for not containing one good picture, or one valuable work ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... reverses, gets assistance from Strongbow and others, Madoc, the story of, Mad Parliament, the, meeting of, at Oxford, its acts declared void by Louis IX., Magna Charta. See Charta. Magnus, King of Norway, gives his kingdom to Harold Hardrata, Mahometans, contract between the Saracenic and Turkish, Malachy, King of Meath, legends of, Malcolm III. of Scotland, his kindness to the Etheling family, his marriage to Margaret, his character and reverence for his wife, manner of his death, troubles in Scotland after this, Malek el Afdal, Saladin's brother, his ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... literature home, they have undergone no conversion in mass, they have been taught by no commerce, by no international relationship; but they have in the course of centuries slowly soaked or trickled, if I may use the words, through the Saracenic populations with which they came in contact, and after being nationally lost to the world, as far as history goes, for long periods and through different countries, eventually they have come to the face of day with that degree of civilization which they at ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... not until the Mohammedan conquest in India that architecture received a new impulse from the Saracenic influence. Then arose the mosques, minarets, and palaces which are a wonder for their magnificence, and in which are seen the influence of Greek art as well as that of India. There is an Oriental splendor in these palaces ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... historian, also thinks it continental in style, and compares it with the architecture of the south-west of France. We even find it spoken of, on account of the richness of its ornamentation, as Saracenic in character. The late Prof. Freeman, in his "History of Architecture," is liberal with his praise, and probably all Roffensians, at any rate, will agree with him, when, in speaking of Norman doors with tympana, he says: "the superb western portal at Rochester Cathedral ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Rochester - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • G. H. Palmer
... Frederick, the first ruler of the modern type who sat upon a throne, had early accustomed himself to a thoroughly objective treatment of affairs. His acquaintance with the internal condition and administration of the Saracenic States was close and intimate; and the mortal struggle in which he was engaged with the Papacy compelled him, no less than his adversaries, to bring into the field all the resources at his command. Frederick's ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... From this point, through the trees, may be seen a forest of minarets, cupolas, towers, and inferior domes. The mausoleum is in the form of an irregular octagon, the longest side being one hundred and twenty feet in length. Each facade has a lofty Saracenic arch, in ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... upon us the repose and consolation of our own serene humanity! We, harassed among the base utilities of life, made weary and sore by the ceaseless struggles of emulation and daily warfare, turn wistfully to the Peripatetic among the shady groves of Athens,—dream of quiet Saracenic courts, echoing with plashy fountains,—of hooded monks, pacing away their cloistered lives beneath storied vaults and little patches of sky,—knowing, while we dream, that out of these came of yore the happiness of the old eurekas and the deep sweetness of ancient knowledge. And then, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... basalt, jade, and gems, Your Saracenic silver, your Nilotic gods, your diadems To bind the brows of Queens, impure, Perfidious, passionate, perfumed—these Your petted, pagan stage-properties, Seem but as toys of trifling worth. For I have marked the naked earth Beside my doorstep yield to the print Of a long light foot, and ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... the Alhambra by a Saracenic cloister, from the ceiling of which an occasional lamp threw a gleam upon some Eastern arms hung up against the wall. This passage led to the armory, a room of moderate dimensions, but hung with rich contents. Many an inlaid breastplate—many ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... the secrets of fate. But time went on. Homeward-bound vessels, direct from the scene of conflict, saw the precious fleet. News of stern conflicts with the infidels was brought by wandering palmers; but from sailor merchant, from peasant warrior, and from noble, scarred with Saracenic wounds, there was a death-like silence in regard to the little wanderers. Streaming eyes fixed upon the East looked in vain until all tears were ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot
... contrast with the Monacelli of the ravines, who are, on the whole, well inclined towards mortals, are the Maghe, first cousins evidently to the terrible ginns of Arabian folk-lore; perhaps the Saracenic pirates themselves may have introduced their oriental sprites to the Neapolitan shores. In the popular mind the Maghe are supposed to possess vast treasures hidden in caves by the seashore, or on the bleak ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... dispute with his own sword, which reply greatly encouraged the Baron when he heard of it, for he wished to try conclusions with the newcomer, and made no secret of his disbelief in the latter's Saracenic exploits, saying the Count had returned when there was none left of the band he took with him, and had, therefore, with much wisdom, left himself free ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... they had failed to conquer; but their fleets commanded the Mediterranean. They held all its islands, Sicily, Crete, Sardinia, and Corsica. They plundered the coast towns of France and Italy. There was a Saracenic ravaging ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... Magic, scientifically treated, flourished in Arabic Spain, being extensively cultivated, in connection with more real or practical learning, by the polite and scientific Arabs. The schools of Salamanca, Toledo, and other Saracenic cities were famous throughout Europe for eminence in medicine, chymistry, astronomy, and mathematics. Thither resorted the learned of the North to perfect themselves in the then cultivated branches of knowledge. The vast amount of scientific literature of the Moslems of Spain, evidenced ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... Saracens as a people because the name has been very loosely used. It was applied by Roman soldiers to several wandering tribes of Arabs who were much accustomed to mistaking other people's flocks of sheep and herds of cattle for their own. Most likely there never was a Saracenic Empire. But there certainly was a time when Arabians controlled not only the Arabian peninsula, but also Syria and the fertile plains of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers as well; and that great region became known as the "Land of the Saracens." From Damascus to Bagdad, and from ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... treason, had before made the Mahometans sovereigns of Spain. We see that the same events had nearly been repeated in France: and had the Crescent towered above the Cross, as every appearance promised to the Saracenic hosts, the least of our evils had now been, that we should have worn turbans, combed our beards instead of shaving them, have beheld a more magnificent architecture than the Grecian, while the public mind had been bounded by the arts and literature ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... architecture was founded on Greek models with the addition of Etruscan construction, and was for a time universally prevalent. The break-up of the Roman Empire was followed by the appearance of the Basilican, the Byzantine, and the Romanesque phases of Christian art; and, later on, by the Saracenic. These are the styles on which all mediaeval and modern European architecture has been based, and these accordingly have furnished the subjects to which the reader's attention is chiefly directed. Such styles as those of India, China ...
— Architecture - Classic and Early Christian • Thomas Roger Smith
... gown, and seemed out of his wits with delight at my arrival in this secluded spot, and taking me by the hand led me to a sort of seat of honour placed in a prominent part of the gallery, which seemed to correspond with the makaa of Saracenic architecture. ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... threshold and stood within on the checkered floor, whose polished tiles glistened under the glare of gas from bronze brackets representing Telamones, that stood at regular intervals around the apartment. The walls were painted in Saracenic style, and here and there hung specimens of Oriental armor—Turcoman cimeters, Damascus swords, Bedouin lances, and a crimson silk flag, with heavy gold fringe, surmounted by a crescent. The cornice of the lofty arched ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... line 232. 'The castle of Crichton has a dungeon vault, called the Massy More. The epithet, which is not uncommonly applied to the prisons of other old castles in Scotland, is of Saracenic origin. It occurs twice in the "Epistolae Itineriae" of Tollius. "Carcer subterraneus, sive, ut Mauri appellant, MAZMORRA," p. 147; and again, "Coguntur omnes Captivi sub noctem in ergastula subterranea, quae Turcae ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... circular, and highly embossed roof, of purple, scarlet, and gold. In the very first style of Saracenic architecture. See the Hall of the Ambassadors in Alhambra, and many other chambers in ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... the Jesuits nearly two hundred years ago, and is one of the finest specimens of Saracenic architecture to be found on this continent. It is located on the lands of the Papago Indians, in ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... Romanesque was there only appropriately replaced by the really Italian style developed in the Roman Renaissance. But in the North, where the early pointed arch had been at first only a memory of Paynim victories, or a trophy of early Saracenic work, the pointed style as a school of architecture was destined to triumph immediately it rose from the position of mere ornament to the necessity of a constructive feature. It was the problem of vaulting over a space that was not square, which gave the ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... directly to the parent stock. Taking, for example, the mediaeval architecture of Spain, the brilliant 'Moresco,' we find it to be a combination of the vigorous Gothic of the North with the beautiful though effeminate Saracenic—the exotic of the South. And of these latter, each is traceable, though by different lines, to the same great prototype, the Roman. For when Rome was divided, the Dome fell to the inheritance of the Eastern Empire, and the Basilica (which was only a ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... the Khedive; my curious blunder. American and English missionaries in Cairo and Alexandria; Dr. Grant's lecture on the Egyptian Trinities. Mr. Nimr; bis scientific and other activities in Egypt. My enjoyment of Saracenic architecture. Revelation to me of the connection between Egyptian and Greek architecture. Disappointment in the work of missionaries in Mohammedan countries. Stay in Athens. Professor Waldstein. The American School of Archaeology. Excursions with Walker Fearne and ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White |
