- Art History, Garden History, Islamic Studies, Islamic art and architecture, Mughal History, Islam and Sufism in South Asia, and 45 moreMughal Architecture, Mughal painting, Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal History, Mughal and Ilkhanid/Timurid Art & Architecture, Mughal India, History of the Mughal Book, Mughal Emperor Shahjahan, Mughal Emperor Jahangir, Mughal, Timurids (Islamic History), Timurid Architecture, Mongol and Timurid Period In the History of Iran, Mongol and Timurid period in the history of Iran, Central Asia, Timurid Iran, history of Islamic art in Timurid era, Timurid, Safavids (Islamic History), Safavid Persia, Safavid Period, Ottoman-Safavid Relations, "Safavid" Architecture, History of Iran during Safavid period (1501/1736), Safavid Empire, Safavid Iran, Safavid Miniature Painting, Safavids, Persian History (From the Safavids to the Qajars), Safavidi, History of Safavid, Islamic Garden and Persian Gardens, Garden and Landscape History, Historic Garden and Landscape, Water in garden history, Historic Garden Studies and Conservation, Garden Archaeology & History, History of Chinese architecture and garden design, History of Garden Plants, Historiography of Islamic Art, Islamic Manuscripts, Persian manuscripts, Persian Manuscript Painting, Arabic/Persian Manuscripts, codicology, Islamic philosophy, early Islamic history and thoughts, Sogdian Archaeology, Silk Road Studies, and Archaeology of Central Asiaedit
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Infrared reflectography of the Mughal painting known as Princes of the House of Timur (British Museum, 1913,0208,0.1) suggests at least four phases of overpainting, reveals previously unseen inscriptions, clarifies issues of iconography,... more
Infrared reflectography of the Mughal painting known as Princes of the House of Timur (British Museum, 1913,0208,0.1) suggests at least four phases of overpainting, reveals previously unseen inscriptions, clarifies issues of iconography, and provides parallels with workshop practice—in particular, with bookbinding and book illustration.
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Research Interests: Ancient History and Art
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Research Interests:
An old essay of mine, in Italian. I don't necessarily hold the same views today, but it would be good to pick up the thread someday. Citation: Laura E. Parodi, “Mirak-i Sayyid Ghiyas and Sayyid Muhammad-i Mirak: Two Timurid Architects in... more
An old essay of mine, in Italian. I don't necessarily hold the same views today, but it would be good to pick up the thread someday.
Citation: Laura E. Parodi, “Mirak-i Sayyid Ghiyas and Sayyid Muhammad-i Mirak: Two Timurid Architects in 16th-Century India.” Oriente & Occidente: Convegno in ricordo di Mario Bussagli, ed. Chiara Silvi Antonini, Bianca Maria Alfieri and Arcangela Santoro. Pisa-Rome, 2002: 176-92.
Citation: Laura E. Parodi, “Mirak-i Sayyid Ghiyas and Sayyid Muhammad-i Mirak: Two Timurid Architects in 16th-Century India.” Oriente & Occidente: Convegno in ricordo di Mario Bussagli, ed. Chiara Silvi Antonini, Bianca Maria Alfieri and Arcangela Santoro. Pisa-Rome, 2002: 176-92.
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Please note that the essay was commissioned at two weeks' notice (!), and the entries are not by me, but drawn from the Aga Khan databases. Nevertheless, I am grateful that I was given an opportunity to write about issues I have long been... more
Please note that the essay was commissioned at two weeks' notice (!), and the entries are not by me, but drawn from the Aga Khan databases. Nevertheless, I am grateful that I was given an opportunity to write about issues I have long been researching.
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Citation: Laura E. Parodi, "The Taj Mahal and the Garden Tradition of the Mughals," Orientations 48/3 (May-June 2017): 2-9
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Citation: Laura E. Parodi, "Shah Abuʾl-Maʿali, Mir Sayyid ʿAli, and the Sayyids of Tirmiz: Three Portraits Challenge Akbari Historiography," Muqarnas 35 (2018): 125-43
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Citation: Laura E. Parodi, "Tracing the Rise of Mughal Portraiture: The Kabul Corpus, c. 1545–55", in Portraiture in South Asia since the Mughals: Art, Representation and History, ed. Crispin Branfoot (London: I.B. Tauris, 2018), 49-71
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Research Interests:
The importance of scientific technical analysis in today's professional museological practice cannot be overstated. While traditional connoisseurship remains a primary tool for the critical evaluation of a work of art, the eye of the... more
The importance of scientific technical analysis in today's professional museological practice cannot be overstated. While traditional connoisseurship remains a primary tool for the critical evaluation of a work of art, the eye of the modern curator can benefit greatly by the enhanced clarity of vision made possible by advanced analytical technology. This preliminary article not only presents the results of a recent major investigative study of a well-known Mughal album page, but also demonstrates the potential and a model for the interactive interpretation of data by art historical scholars and research scientists working in tandem.
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Research Interests: Mughal History, Safavid Persia, Safavid Empire, Safavid Iran, Mughal painting, and 9 moreOttoman, Safavid, and Mughal History, History of Iran during Safavid period (1501/1736), Mughal Art, Women in the Mughal Empire, Mughal Miniature Painting, Persian History (From the Safavids to the Qajars), Mughal State, Hindu-muslim Mughal History, and Mughal Ceremonial
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Research Interests:
This book tells a story of serendipity. Two Christian monks left China about 1274, headed to Jerusalem. Travelling on an itinerary similar to that of Marco Polo, they reached Iran, ruled by a Mongol dynasty, the Ilkhans. There, what they... more
This book tells a story of serendipity. Two Christian monks left China about 1274, headed to Jerusalem. Travelling on an itinerary similar to that of Marco Polo, they reached Iran, ruled by a Mongol dynasty, the Ilkhans. There, what they never had expected happened: one of them, Mark by name, was elected Patriarch of the Church of the East (with the name Yahballaha), while the other, Rabban Sauma, was sent as ambassador to the pope and to the courts of France and England by the Ilkhan Arghun.
From Rabban Sauma’s report of his embassy, and the two monk’s memories of their journey from China to Mesopotamia, an anonymous author compiled a biography of Sauma and Mark. He interspersed their report and memories with a narrative about “the occurrences of their time – what happened to them, through them or because of them, relating everything just as it happened”.
The result was a chronicle titled “History of Mar Yahballaha and Rabban Sauma”, of which a single manuscript was discovered in the late nineteenth century in the remote mountains of Hakkari (Eastern Turkey). The “History” is one of the more recent examples of classical Syriac literature, a major Christian literary tradition of the Near East.
While the encounter with two Asian “Marco Polos” of sorts constitutes the "History"’s most immediate element of appeal for present-day readers, the work deserves to be read in its entirety, as a rich and lively testimony of a time of unprecedented interconnectedness in the history of Eurasia in the time of the Mongol Empire.
From Rabban Sauma’s report of his embassy, and the two monk’s memories of their journey from China to Mesopotamia, an anonymous author compiled a biography of Sauma and Mark. He interspersed their report and memories with a narrative about “the occurrences of their time – what happened to them, through them or because of them, relating everything just as it happened”.
The result was a chronicle titled “History of Mar Yahballaha and Rabban Sauma”, of which a single manuscript was discovered in the late nineteenth century in the remote mountains of Hakkari (Eastern Turkey). The “History” is one of the more recent examples of classical Syriac literature, a major Christian literary tradition of the Near East.
While the encounter with two Asian “Marco Polos” of sorts constitutes the "History"’s most immediate element of appeal for present-day readers, the work deserves to be read in its entirety, as a rich and lively testimony of a time of unprecedented interconnectedness in the history of Eurasia in the time of the Mongol Empire.