Anna McSweeney: From Granada to Berlin: the Alhambra Cupola. (Connecting Art Histories in the Museum.) 196 pp. Dortmund: Verlag Kettler, 2020. €34. ISBN 978 3 86206 831 9.

Abstract

the machinations of the sultan’s exceptionally powerful wife (pp. 229–30). In fact, the very form of advice – imparted by a giver distanced from its recipient – and its frequent deployment in spite of its uncontested inefficacy, should suffice to alert the judicious reader to take heed of what lies between the lines. Considered as trope, advice also resists generic categorization (p. 51). How such novel typologies enhance our understanding of mirrors as refractors of political crisis remains unresolved. These theoretical qualms aside, there is much to recommend in this study. The author offers a particularly thoughtful analysis of al-Jāḥiẓ and Machiavelli on what distinguished advice literature as works providing instruction on matters of government (pp. 49–51), and a calibrated reading of the nuances of justice in various mirrors (pp. 118–38). An impressive amount of learning is imparted in those sections (chapters 2, 3, and 4) that offer a close reading of the selected mirrors and cognate texts. However, much of what is new and original in Reflecting Mirrors is buried under endless references to artificial boundaries and devising new taxonomies that, in spite of vigorous protestations to the contrary, have their own limitations and drawbacks.