Profile
Ph.D., Princeton University 2012
Patricia Blessing specializes in the art and architecture of the Islamic world, with a focus on the eastern Mediterranean from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries. Her first book, Rebuilding Anatolia after the Mongol Conquest: Islamic Architecture in the Lands of Rūm, 1240–1330 (Ashgate, 2014; Turkish translation Koç University Press, 2018) investigates the relationship between patronage, politics, and architectural style after the integration of the region into the Mongol empire.
Blessing’s second book, Architecture and Material Politics in the Fifteenth-century Ottoman Empire (Cambridge University Press, 2022) explores the emergence of Ottoman architecture in the fifteenth century and its connection with broader geographical contexts. Analyzing how transregional exchange shaped building practices, she examines how workers from Anatolia, the Mediterranean, the Balkans, and Iran and Central Asia participated in key construction projects. She demonstrates how drawn, scalable models on paper served as templates for architectural decorations and supplemented collaborations that involved the mobility of workers
Blessing has received fellowships from the British Academy, the Society of Architectural Historians, the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, the International Center of Medieval Art, the Barakat Trust, the Gerda Henkel Foundation, and ANAMED Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations. She is the German Content Manager for Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online, and the Managing Editor of the International Journal of Islamic Architecture.
Blessing joined Princeton’s faculty in 2020. Before, she was Assistant Professor of Art History at Pomona College. At Princeton, she is an associated faculty member in the Department of Near Eastern Studies and the Program in Medieval Studies. She serves on the Executive Committee of the Program in Archaeology.
Current research
Blessing’s current book project, Spaces of Artifice: Objects and Interior Design in Anatolia, c. 1200–1500, examines the intersection between textiles, architecture, and objects in late medieval Islamic architecture with a particular focus on interiors. Bridging between architectural history and the study of objects, this project breaks new ground in the sensory history of Islamic art history, and proposes a holistic study of monuments alongside their furnishings. Blessing is working on two collaborative projects. The first, co-authored with Eiren L. Shea (Grinnell College) and Elizabeth Dospel Williams (Dumbarton Oaks), is a brief history of textiles in medieval Eurasia. The second, with Richard P. McClary (University of York), aims at the close analysis and digital reconstruction of a now-lost Saljuq palace structure in Konya, Turkey.
Teaching interests
Blessing’s teaching interests include the multi-sensory experience of spaces and objects; medieval and early modern Islamic architecture; transcultural approaches to medieval art, the politics of urban space in the modern Middle East; heritage preservation and Islamic archaeology; and style as a tool of art historical investigation.
Architecture and Material Politics in the Fifteenth-century Ottoman Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022).
Rebuilding Anatolia after the Mongol Conquest: Islamic Architecture in the Lands of Rūm, 1240–1330, Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Studies 17 (Farnham, Surrey and Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishers, 2014). Translated into Turkish as Moğol Fethinden Sonra Anadolu’nun Yeniden İnşası: Rum Diyarında İslami Mimari, 1240–1330 (Istanbul: Koç University Press, 2018).
Patricia Blessing and Rachel Goshgarian, ed. Architecture and Landscape in Medieval Anatolia, 1100–1500 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2017).
“Inscribed Identities: Some Monumental Inscriptions in Eastern Anatolia and the Caucasus,” in The Seljuqs and their Successors: Art, Culture and History, ed. Sheila Canby, Martina Rugiadi, and Deniz Beyazit (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2020).
“Blue-and-White Tiles of the Muradiye in Edirne: Architectural Decoration between Tabriz, Damascus, and Cairo,” Muqarnas 36 (2019).
“Weaving on the Wall: Architecture and Textiles in the Monastery of Las Huelgas in Burgos,” Studies in Iconography 40 (2019).
“The Vessel as Garden: The ‘Alhambra Vases’ and Sensory Perception in Nasrid Architecture,” in Sensory Reflections: Traces of Experience in Medieval Artifacts, ed. Fiona Griffiths and Kathryn Starkey (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2018), 116–141.
“Seljuk Past and Timurid Present: Tile Decoration of the Yeşil Complex in Bursa, Turkey,” Gesta 56, no. 2 (Fall, 2017).
“From the Survey of Persian Art to the CIA: Donald N. Wilber and Ilkhanid Architecture in Iran,” in Historiography of Persian Architecture, ed. Mohammad Gharipour (New York and London: Routledge, 2016).
“Medieval Monuments from Empire to Nation-State: Beyond Armenian and Islamic Architecture in the South Caucasus (1180–1300),” The Medieval South Caucasus: Artistic Cultures of Albania, Armenia, and Georgia, ed. Ivan Foletti and Erik Thunø, Convivium: Exchanges and Interactions in the Arts of Medieval Europe, Byzantium, and the Mediterranean, Seminarium Kondakovianum (Supplementum 2016).
“Friedrich Sarre and the Discovery of Seljuk Anatolia,” Journal of Art Historiography 11 (December, 2014).
