ABSTRACT
The Turks laid siege to Vienna in 1683. In the following year the Moroccan seaport of Tangier, which had come to Britain with Bombay as part of the dowry of Charles II’s Portuguese queen, was once again lost to the Moors. The political importance of these two events, like the commercial, may be relative; but between them they do in their different ways suggest why it was that the Islamic world had its part to play in shaping and colouring the culture of the baroque in Europe. The middle years of the seventeenth century were ones of political and military recovery in the Ottoman Empire, and the Turkish menace, which had already provided a disturbing counterpoint to the achievements of the Renaissance period in Germany and Eastern Europe especially, was growing so ominous that in retrospect one can only marvel at the indifference which was displayed towards it.
