Page:A History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 2.djvu/533

Rh Bk. I. Ch.il MECCA. . 517' lookina: towards Mecca, where also are situated — as in that of Bar- k^jok — the tombs of the founder and his family. A considerable num- ber of ancient columns have been used in the erection of the building, but the su]ierstructure is so light and elegant that the effect is agree- able ; and of the " mixed mosques " — i.e., those where ancient materials are incorjjorated — tliis is one of the most pleasing specimens. Perliaps the most perfect gem in or about Cairo is the mosque and tomb of Kaitbey (Woodcut No. 907), outside the walls, erected a.d. 1463. Looked at externally or internally nothing can exceed the grace of every part of this building. Its small dimensions exclude it from any claim to grandeur, nor does it pretend to the purity of the Greek and some other styles ; but as a perfect model of the elegance we generally associate with the architecture of this people, it is perhaps unrivalled by anything in Egyi)t, and far surpasses the Alhambra or the other Western buildings of its age. After this period there were not many important buildings erected in Cairo, or indeed in Egyj>t ; and when a new age of splendor appears the old art is found to have died out, and a Renaissance far more injurious than that of the West has grown up in the interval. In modern Europe the native architects wrought out the so-called restoration of art in their own pedantic fashion ; but in the Levant the corresponding ))rocess took place under the aus- pices of a set of refugee Italian artists, who engrafted their would-be classical notions on the Moorish style with a vulgarity of form and color of Avhich we have no conception. In the later buildings of Meliemet Ali and his contemporaries we find the richest and most beautiful materials used so as to make us wonder how men could so pervert every notion of beauty and propriety to the production of such discordant ugliness. From its size and the beauty of the materials, the mosque erected by the late pasha in the citadel at Cairo ought to rival any of the more ancient buildings in the city ; but as it is, nothing can be worse or more uninteresting. Mecca. , In a history of the Mahomedan religion a description of the mosque at Mecca would naturally take the first place ; but in a work devoted to architecture it is sufficient to mention it in connection with Egypt, to whose sultans it owes whatever architectural adornment it possesses. The Kaabah, or holy shrine itself, has no architecture, and is famous only for its sanctity. In the earlier centuries of the Hejira the area seems to have been surrounded by a cloister of no great magnificence, but after a great fire.