The Arts of Intimacy: Christians, Jews, and Muslims in the Making of Castilian Culture (review)

The authors of The Arts of Intimacy describe their book as "less a work of original scholarship than a different narration of cultural history" (p. 7). Their declared aim is to make comprehensible to a general readership the extraordinarily complex process of cultural interaction that took place between the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim cultures of the Iberian Peninsula between the eleventh and the fourteenth centuries, before a new Spanish identity—which preferred to draw a veil over the profound cultural hybridity that had gone before—came into being in the early-modern period. Taking as its centerpoint the city of Toledo, the book illuminates this process of cultural cross-fertilization through the prism of the arts, architecture, and literature of the period. In seven highly readable chapters, each divided into a series of carefully crafted vignettes, the authors take the reader on an evocative and thought-provoking journey, and deploy their undoubted expertise in this field to excellent effect. The text is supplemented by an immensely useful range of inserts that provide information on key people, monuments, and texts of the period, from the Treaty of Tudmir to the Marinids. The book does not exactly break new ground, in that the subject matter will be familiar to specialists, but it impels the reader to reconsider key texts and monuments from novel and sometimes surprising perspectives. The analysis of Bab al-Mardum/Santa Cruz in Toledo and its transformation from Muslim mosque to Christian church is a notable case in point. It is pleasing to see that this cultural hybridity is not viewed through rose-tinted glasses, and the authors wisely do not suggest that the multicultural world of medieval Iberia was in any way a utopia of tolerance. The work is buttressed by an excellent bibliographical essay and extensive bibliography, as well as a chronology, genealogies, and a glossary of unfamiliar terms.

Inevitably, in a work of such broad scope, the emphases of the authors will not be to the liking of all. One could argue, for example, that the Jewish dimension—in particular, the role played by Jewish scientists, translators, and literary exponents—does not receive the attention it deserves. There are some other jarring notes. For example, the affirmation that the Cantar de mio Cid "celebrated the values of the late eleventh century" (p. 38) is questionable, since so much of recent scholarship has demonstrated that work's late-twelfth-century milieu. Furthermore, the chronology is littered with errors too numerous to list here.

Despite these cavils, The Arts of Intimacy will become essential reading for scholars and students of this period. Beautifully written and lavishly illustrated, the book represents a distinguished contribution to our understanding of the cosmopolitan world of medieval Iberia. Praise is also due to Yale University Press for offering such a splendid book at a very reasonable price.