Kufic Epigraphy between Norman Sicily and Ifriqiya

Abstract Current scholarship on the role of Islamic art in the formation of Norman Sicilian material cultures argues for the importing of artistic traditions from Fatimid Egypt. This Palermo—Cairo axis overshadows the cultural ties that linked Sicily with nearby Ifriqiya (modern-day Tunisia and Algeria), narrowly separated by the Strait of Sicily. This article explores the epigraphic and visual ties between Sicily and Ifriqiya through extant Kufic epigraphs. It presents for the first time the inscriptions of the Santa Maria di Terreti Church near Reggio Calabria, Italy, and the San Giovanni degli Eremiti and Santa Maria dell’Ammiraglio churches in Palermo, Sicily. Previously dismissed as pseudo-Kufic, these fragments preserve true texts whose ornament and epigraphy correspond to the visual traditions of Zirid Ifriqiya. They offer an alternative perspective to the notion of cultural discontinuity that has guided recent research on the arts of Norman Sicily, instead pointing to medium-specific continuity bridging pre-Norman and Norman rule.