Syrian Presence and Liturgical Transformation in the Martorana Church, Palermo 1143-1193; Part 4: The Kalbid Hall, Qasr Giafar 997-1071

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No research has ever been conducted on the Kalbid Emir Giafar's palace mosque in Palermo (997) and ist subsequent transformation (1071) into Count Roger I's reception hall and private chapel. However, at Qasr Giafar (Villa Favara) the sequence of spaces towards north preserve important remains and traces of Kalbid architecture, as well as liturgical furnishings for the performance of the Byzantine rite. The investigations accomplished so far concerning the ways in which syncretism, adaptation and reinterpretation shaped the development of calligraphy and liturgical space in the Martorana and the Constantinian Basilica made it apparent that Qasr Giafar provides an unexpected and highly significant parallel: the preserved rooms date from the late Kalbid era (989-1036) and may serve as a conclusive paradigm of pre-Norman architecture and the subsequent liturgical reinterpretation of space, as its transformation took place in 1071, simultanously with the reconsecration of the old basilica which had served for 200 years as congregational mosque.The Kalbid remains have not been considered again since 1897. While the sumptuous stucco-decoration of a mihrab niche survives largely intact, remains and traces of a domed minaret will have to be studied and assessed for the first time. The historiographic vacuum between late antiquity and the Norman conquest which so typical for Sicily, may be substantially supplemented by hitherto neglected written sources and material remains of the comparably well documented Kalbid era. On one side, the proverbial splendour of the last Kalbids has decisively influenced the Normans' instant preference for Islamic architectural forms. Furthermore, as it looks, already the Kalbid court achieved from about the 990's a remarkable assimilation of forms and techniques then current in Kairo and Kairouan to an urban population that was predominantly Greek-Byzantine and Syrian-Melkite, but only in part Muslim. Greek architects versed in Aghlabid and Tulunid forms and styles bear witness to the way in which Orthodox Sicily, while under Kalbid rule, remained part of the Byzantine world: the already assessed arabicised elements, so strikingly apparent in the Martorana about 1155, may be conceived more clearly in terms of unbroken continuity than hitherto assumed. In this way, a long established base of demographic change emerges. Supplementing research on written sources as well as evaluation and photodocumentation of all structures which remain in situ, an investigation of artefacts, such as inscriptions and stucco- or woodcarvings, relocated since the 1890's in the Galleria Regionale (magazzino) is planned.