Madinat al-Zahra\u27, the tenth-century Umayyad palace city built by \u27Abd al-Rahman III outside of Cordoba, the caliphal seat of Andalusia, is of profound importance within the history of Islamic architecture, gardens, and landscape because at al-Zahra\u27 occurred the first synthesis of Abbasid and Umayyad palace typology in the Iberian Peninsula. From this synthesis emerged many of the Hispano-Islamic stylistic elements associated with later palace such as the Alcazaba of Malaga, the Castillejo of Monteagudo, the Alcazaba of Almeria, and the Alhambra and Generalife of Granada. These elements included the use of luxury materials (marble, precious wood, stucco), grandiose scale and complex plan of juxtaposed residences and reception halls, serving a variety of functions, and the use of water and vegetation not only as decorative elements, but as essential elements in the spatial planning of the palace.^ Relying on a textual foundation of Arabic agricultural manuals, plant lists, histories, geographies, and poetry as well as archaeological data from Madinat al-Zahra\u27 and related sites, the dissertation places the palace city within its regional agricultural context and links it with the more than twenty-five other palaces and villas built around Cordoba in the Umayyad period, both before and after the founding of al-Zahra\u27.^ The chapters examine the typological sources for al-Zahra\u27s architecture and gardens, its orientation to landscape, exploitation of hillside location, and deliberate manipulation of vistas via miradors and viewing platforms, as well as the question of the meaning of a panoramic view of landscape in the medieval Islamic world and for whom the view was intended. The economic and hydraulic reasons for a green belt of agricultural and recreation estates with gardens and orchards surrounding Cordoba are examined. The last chapter discusses Madinat al-Zahra\u27s persistence, after it was destroyed in the eleventh century, as a nostalgic symbol of the gradual loss of Andalusia to the Christian conquerors.
