Volando sopra il Mediterraneo: il Grifone di Pisa e aspetti della metallistica islamica medievale

... 27 However, in 1973 Melikian-Chirvani changed his attribution to Spain, having been persuaded by the observation (published a little later, in 1975) made by Antonio Fernández Puertas of the similarities between the style of the script on the Griffin and that on the metal lamp of Montefrío found in Spain ( Fig. 12) 28 -and I can now confirm that the two are not just similar in style but identical. 29 Given this palaeographical connection, Fernández Puertas concluded that the Griffin should be attributed to Spain, and it is a Spanish provenance that has become increasingly accepted, as, for example, by Almut von Gladiss in the catalogue of the 1989 Berlin exhibition, 30 That the Griffin and Lion differ from Fatimid metal animal figures is clear. Quite apart from their size, they are distinguished by their imposing and rather stylized posture, which contrasts with the more "naturalistic" one of Fatimid zoomorphic metalwork, such as the deer in Naples (Fig. 17) and that in Munich (Fig. 18). ...

... Indeed, the appearance of the beast as it is now can be rather misleading, as its heavy green patina obscures or has even deleted many of the details of the decorative motifs. As a result, it took a long and 29 thorough direct investigation, with macro lenses and microscopes and with the help of macro and raking-light photography as well as images from the 3D scanning (see Vidale, Ferrari and Bassi, Chapter 1.2 and Callieri, Scopigno and Dellepiane, Chapter 2.7), to reconstruct exactly what is there in terms of decorative motifs, how they were done, and what their significance is within the overall concept of the bronze in visual terms. ...