Grand Tour
5281 Fez Bou Inania
Scott O’Connor. Edited by Gianni Guadalupi
2002 / 108 PAGES.
Language: italiano
Built in the 14th century, the Madrasa Bou Inania in Fez is considered an unparalleled masterpiece among Koranic schools. This book illustrates it via a wealth of images accompanied by an anthology of texts written between the 16th and 20th centuries.
The Bou Inania Koranic school is the most monumental madrasa built by the Marinid Sultanate. Its minaret, placed in the northwest corner, was the highest in all of Fez, with a corridor leading to an elaborate water clock that indicated prayer times to this mosque and the others in the city. Nested in the dense and irregular fabric of the city, on the outside it presents only a magnificent doorway. The images in this book will allow readers to cross that threshold once crowded with shops, entering the marble-paved courtyard and then, trough detailed images, exploring the surrounding areas. Aside from a series of critical essays, readers will be accompanied by the stories of amazed visitors who travelled to Fez on a Grand Tour that remained nearly uninterrupted from 1550 to 1930.