M.ª Elena Díez Jorge, researcher from the department of Arts History at the University of Granada, has thoroughly analyzed more than one hundred documents from that time, which were kept in several archives
Her work, first of its kind in the world, has unveiled the distribution and other aspects of the houses that the Catholic Monarchs ordered to be built and inhabited within the
A researcher from the University of Granada (UGR) has described, for the first time, how the houses of the first Christians to occupy the
Her work, first of its kind in the world (given that, until now, the houses studied were the Islamic ones), has unveiled how the houses built and inhabited within the
The research has been carried out by Mª Elena Díez Jorge, professor at the UGR department of Arts History, who thoroughly analyzed more than one hundred documents from that age, which were kept in several archives (such as the General Archive of Simancas in Valladolid, for example).
This has allowed her to reconstruct certain interesting aspects about the houses from that time, in addition to writing a plan showing the distribution of more than thirty of said houses within the
Houses of less than
“The Christians who settled in the
The researcher notes that the space in front of the main facade of the
The houses’ typology, as well as the different parts that configured them, the household furnishings, and the life behind close doors during those first years after the conquest complete this study, which has appeared in a book published by the Sílex publishing company under the sponsorship of the Excellence Project GENARQ, lead by the University of Granada, and in collaboration with another project lead by Julio Navarro Palazón, from the School of Arabic Studies, belonging to the Spanish National Research Council (Centro Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, CSIC).
Despite the small size of some of the houses, the people living in them managed well to accommodate several persons. In the analyzed houses within the Alhambra there were houses occupied by the owner and his wife and children, as well as families who were part of the domestic service, or even such particular cases as one father who shared the house with his wounded son in order to help the latter heal the wounds he had received during the war of Granada.
Shop/houses
Moreover, the research has brought to light that some of these houses were part shop, part house. “Given their reduced proportions, they were almost limited to a small counter and a tiny room”. Only some of the most relevant ones had a farmyard and a vegetable garden, but it wasn’t very common. The stables were also just small cubicles in which to keep the animals.
“Although much has been written about the Alhambra, the different moments of its long history and the vicissitudes it has endured, there remain some aspects to investigate about it”, warns the UGR historian. “One of them is, precisely, the configuration and disposition of the houses of those first settlers after the Christian conquest in 1492, and that’s the object of this work”.
Bibliographic references:
Mª Elena Díez Jorge, Casas en
Contact:
Mª Elena Díez Jorge
Departamento de Historia del Arte de la UGR
Telephone: (+34) 958 241 000 ext. 20293
E-mail: mdiez@ugr.es
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