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Saracenical   Listen
adjective
Saracenical, Saracenic  adj.  Of or pertaining to the Saracens; as, Saracenic architecture. "Saracenic music."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Saracenical" Quotes from Famous Books



... witnessed in the oldest existing Christian church, namely, the 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, ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson

... 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

... also, because the soul of the student must have rest and diversion, I saw volumes of songs and music loved by lovers in every land, and drawings of mosques, churches and palaces, masterpieces of Indian and Saracenic genius; and of gardens there was the Zebra, created by Abderrahman for the best loved of his Sultanas. Of poetry, O Princess, I saw many books, the lord of them a copy of Homer in Arabic, executed on ivory from the ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace

... 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

... these subjects, his history is 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, and ...
— The Negro: what is His Ethnological Status? 2nd Ed. • Buckner H. 'Ariel' Payne

... 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 Algezerani vocant MAZMORRAS," p. ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott

... mine cannot give any idea of that sublime architecture, which resembled no earthly order, though it seemed to partake of both the Saracenic and the Indian. Fragrant timber, precious stones, and burnished metals; in fine, the richest materials known to the builders, had been united with consummate art into one harmonious emblem of their faith. The first beams of the rising sun blazed ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro

... India[3] and added that strange and ancient land to their domain. Europe 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 of Rome. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various

... ambitious standing than these really grand abodes, yet of a mark much above that suggested by the word villa, we may name the very showy house of Mr. Napier, the eminent maker of marine steam-engines, on the Gareloch, a building in the Saracenic style, which cost we are afraid to say how many thousand pounds; the finely-placed castle of Wemyss, built from the design of Billings; and the very striking piece of baronial architecture called Knock Castle, the residence of Mr. Steel, a wealthy shipbuilder ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd

... 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 ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan

... 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 reach ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon

... the days of St. Osmond to the time of Henry VIII., that the materials employed in English ecclesiastical embroideries were the best that could be found in our own country or in far-off lands, and the art bestowed on them was the best we could learn and give. Various fabrics came from Byzantine or Saracenic looms, which are described as damasked, rayed, marbled, &c. The few surviving specimens fully justify the admiration bestowed on ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford

... only was the future of western European civilization settled there, but that of North and South America as well. Had Saracenic civilization come to dominate Europe, the Koran might have been taught to- day in the theological schools of Boston, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Buenos Aires, and Valparaiso, and the Christian religion been the possession only ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY

... 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 to this ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various

... voice of the dancing rill, And the sad, sad song of the lonely bird. And at last he 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 ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various

... 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 ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps

... the eye of tall slender Eastern trees—bosky shrubberies—flocks of golden and crimson birds—lily-fringed lakes—meadows of violets, tulips, poppies, hyacinths, and tuberoses—long intertangled lines of silver streamlets—and, upspringing confusedly from amid all, a mass of semi-Gothic, semi-Saracenic architecture sustaining itself by miracle in mid-air, glittering in the red sunlight with a hundred oriels, minarets, and pinnacles; and seeming the phantom handiwork, conjointly, of the Sylphs, of the Fairies, of the Genii and of ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... Saracenic squadrons had begun To bend, and all the army of the Moor Had turned, disordered, broken, and undone, Never to be arrayed or rallied more, But that Grandonio stood, and Falsiron, Tried oftentimes in greater ill before, ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto

... 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 mountain side, and it was doubtless concerning these spirits that the guide's tale, given ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan

... 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 Eastern ...
— On the Antiquity of the Chemical Art • James Mactear

... 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 measures (especially after the year 1231) are aimed at the ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt

... 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 ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson

... intricacies!—what mullioned windows, that 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 ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville

... ignorantly flung himself down in a contrary direction to the shadows thrown by the 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 ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... battlements placed close together, as if to be manned by bowmen, while in not a few 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 flues and earthenware tubes, well made and mortared together. Here ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton

... excessively lofty, vaulted, and elaborately fretted with the wildest and most grotesque specimens of a semi-Gothic, semi-Druidical device. From out the most central recess of this melancholy vaulting, depended, by a single chain of gold with long links, a huge censer of the same metal, Saracenic in pattern, and with many perforations so contrived that there writhed in and out of them, as if endued with a serpent vitality, a continual succession ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various

... 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 Redfern. Over the doorway in the centre, stand St. Peter and St. Paul, and the ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Gloucester [2nd ed.] • H. J. L. J. Masse

... 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 ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... and productions, and boasted of celebrated cities. They composed 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, ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord

... sellers, who display a strange 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

... stairway. Abbas led his customers to an upper room which they found dark except where he lighted it as he went with hanging lamps. Its space was generous, broken here and there by piles of ebony furniture, inlaid with pearl; pieces of Saracenic armor, Damascened bucklers, and all the gear too large for ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck

... 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 ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino

... spire crowned by a crescent. Beneath it an enclosure of marble trellis-work surrounds the tomb of the princess and of her husband, the Emperor. Each corner of the mausoleum is covered by a similar though much smaller dome erected on a pediment pierced with graceful Saracenic arches. Light is admitted into the interior through a double screen of pierced marble, which tempers the glare of an Indian sky while its whiteness prevents the mellow effect from degenerating into gloom. The internal decorations consist of inlaid ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... many an offshoot can be followed up 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 Greek temple turned inside out) to the Western. ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various

... room itself; and the people 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 known ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn

... 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 ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge

... were at the same time the most luxurious of men, heavy drinkers, debauched sensualists, magnificent in their profusion, in their splendid prodigality in works of art and luxury, and in the munificence with which they filled their capital with noble monuments of the most exquisite Saracenic architecture. Most of the beautiful mosques of Cairo were built by these truculent soldiers, all foreigners, chiefly Turks, a caste apart, with no thought for the native Egyptians whose lands they received as fiefs from the sultan; with no ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... the byways 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 ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan

... averse from books and literates: "He was 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; so much so that, after his return to France, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... warrior and crusader. A new diversion and 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 ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various

... church is in some parts gaudy, and there is a silver rail of some value. The ceiling is of cedar, richly carved, and reminds me of some of the old churches at Venice, which present a style half Gothic half Saracenic. Near the church a public garden has lately been formed, and some curious exotic trees placed ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham

... received with a salute of thirty-one guns, had been filled that morning by the elite of Burman society, fifteen hundred in number, and the address of welcome had drawn from the viceroy a fitting response. All Rangoon was a wonder of decoration. Arches with Saracenic domes built by the Moslems, pagodalike structures built by the Buddhists, Parsee towers, and Hindu temples, appeared at many street-crossings, and one long avenue was lined on either side with elevated ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong

... 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 ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot

... 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 and lovely ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various

... through the dimly lighted vault 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

... dashing young artists of the present day this may seem a trifle; to them, no doubt, a cat is a cat—or would be, if they could make it one. Of course, there are cats enough in London, and sometimes even a few to spare; but I wanted a cat of peculiar order, and of a Saracenic cast. I walked miles and miles; till at last I found him residing in a very old-fashioned house in the Polygon, at Somers Town. Here was a genuine paradise of cats, carefully ministered to and guarded by a maiden lady of Portuguese birth and ...
— George Bowring - A Tale Of Cader Idris - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore

... in the outside is to be found in four tower-like projections, not, as at Arles and Nimes, signs of Saracenic occupation, but clearly parts of the original design. Many conjectures have been made about them; they look as if they were means of approach to the upper part of the building; but it is wisest not to be positive. But the main peculiarity of this amphitheater ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various

... 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

... 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, was placed on the table, and then old Lobbs fell to, in regular style; and having ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... 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

... 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 the capital of their Sicilian territories ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux

... progenitors of the Stewarts, and who were active Crusaders. It was considered a most holy stone, and had healing properties of a high order. It is a very perfect specimen of rock crystal; the silver setting is Saracenic in character, and said to be very old. Up to 1840, and even later, people used to come to Ardvoirlich from long distances to have the stone immersed in water, while a Gaelic incantation was repeated by the laird or lady. Then ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various

... 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 and mosques which has called out the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord

... 1868. 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 ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice

... its continental neighbors. It is a romantic country; but its romance has none of the sentimentality of modern European romance: it is chiefly derived from the brilliant regions of the East, and from the high-minded school of Saracenic chivalry. ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving

... healthy existence and unlimited reproduction. The Romanesque art seems to have dealt with the ancient forms, without moulding any thing essentially and vitally new. Where there seemed originality, it was, after all, only a theft from the Saracenic or Byzantine, and the plagiarism became incongruity when engrafted upon the Roman. Thus a Latin church was often but an early Christian basilica ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... originated from, or was largely modified by, Grecian 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 known that Western Europe in the Middle ages drew its philosophy, its arts, ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.

... The gift of color they passed on to the West, first through the Moors of Sicily and Spain, later through Venetian commerce. Their influence can be seen in the exquisite mosaic decoration in the cloister of Mont Reale of once Saracenic Palermo, and in the Ducal Palace and St. Mark's Cathedral of beauty-loving Venice.[1164] This has been almost their sole contribution to the art of ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple

... 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 ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou

... 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 ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... roof and the buttresses and higher part of the wall of a great hall, of a splendid and exuberant style of architecture, of which one can say little more than that it seemed to me to embrace the best qualities of the Gothic of northern Europe with those of the Saracenic and Byzantine, though there was no copying of any one of these styles. On the other, the south side, of the road was an octagonal building with a high roof, not unlike the Baptistry at Florence in outline, except that it was surrounded ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris

... lieutenant of the Khalif Omar, conquered Egypt, and annexed it to the Saracenic Empire, he found in Alexandria a Greek grammarian, John surnamed Philoponus, or the Labor-lover. Presuming on the friendship which had arisen between them, the Greek solicited as a gift the remnant of the great library—a ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper

... yearlings of the flock." 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

... are always at hand, 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 Grieve is a sufficient guarantee both ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 443 - Volume 17, New Series, June 26, 1852 • Various

... brought no captive arts or 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 ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman

... interesting public monuments at Palermo date from the Norman period; and while many of the buildings are strikingly Saracenic in character and recall similar structures erected by the Arabs in Spain, it will be remembered that the Normans brought no trained architects to the island, but employed the Arabs, Greeks, and Hebrews who had already been in the service of the Saracen emirs. But the Arab influence in architecture ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various

... through the Pass of Col d'Ollioulles. It was awfully impressive. The Pass appeared to consist of a mighty cleft between two mountains; the result of some convulsion of Nature. There was only room for the carriage road to pass between the cliffs. The ruins of a Saracenic castle stood on the heights to guard the passage. It was certainly the most romantic ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth

... of light. Timidly she crossed the 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 ceiling ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans

... the Saracenic music of the challengers concluded one of those long and high 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 the new champion which these ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... called intrinsically better or worse. Thus 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 and daily ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana

... 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 ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen

... 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 ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various

... 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

... force of the waters, and miraculously wafted over the sea to Nepenthe. Forthwith a chapel was built on the spot, to commemorate the event and preserve the sacred relic which soon began working wonders for the good of the island, such as warding off Saracenic invasions, procuring plentiful vintages, and causing sterile cattle to ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas



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