Berber Carpets of Morocco: The Symbols Origin and Meaning
Bruno Barbatti was born in Zurich in 1926, the son of an architect of Italian and a mother of German origin. He is and feels himself a Swiss. He studied at the universities of Fribourg, Paris (the Sorbonne), Florence and Zurich, where he qualified as a Ph.D (history and German). He married Dominique Abadie, a French woman born in Paris, who later became a writer. For thirty-five years he was a teacher of history and history of art at the High School for Mathematics and Natural Science in Zurich, where he had himself been a pupil. In consequence he combines scientific precision with his artistic sensitivity. During several journeys to Morocco and extended stays in Marrakesh, where his wife was for some years a teacher at the Lycee Mohammed V, he came to appreciate Berber culture. Berber carpets fascinated the couple. In the course of time they acquired, purely for their aesthetic pleasure, numerous pieces which 30 years later have proved to be a choice collection. In 1996 some of them were exhibited at the Museum Bellerive in Zurich. Following the ICOC conference at Marrakesh in 1995, this exhibition sparked the current interest in Berber carpets. Since then the author's inquiring and critical spirit has led him to undertake systematic personal research to determine the origin and meaning of carpet symbolism. The present work is the result. Readers will form their own opinions. However, it is certain, that all amateurs of Berber carpets and lovers of Morocco, as well as those who recognise in symbolism a more profound sense of the reality, will find here pictures, knowledge and vision.