Page:An Elementary History of Art.djvu/115

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Moorish Architecture. 85 are ranged round two long courts — one called the " Court of the Fishpond," the other the " Court of the Lions." They consist of porticoes, pillared halls (Fig. 40&), arcaded chambers, exquisitely paved with mosaics, etc. They may be studied in miniature in the " Alhambra Court" at the Crystal Palace. No building of any importance was erected by the Moors, after the Alhambra, before their final expulsion from Spain in 1492. At the very time when the power of the kings of Granada was rapidly declining, a new province was being added to those already occupied by the followers of the Prophet, by the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks (1453). The new rulers of the Eastern Empire effected a great change in the architecture of the subjugated country, and introduced a style of mosque which differed not only from the sacred buildings of the East, of the time of which we are treating, but also from anything previously pro- duced by the Mohammedans. They took Santa Sophia for their model, and all their buildings are reproductions more or less perfect of that great work of Justinian. The mosque of Soliman II., at Adrianople, is an exact copy of Santa Sophia in plan and form, but differs from it in detail. It was completed in 1556. The finest mosque built by the Turks at Constantinople is that of Soliman the Magnificent (1530—1555).