“ Told often enough that the West and Islam are natural enemies, we start to believe it, and assume it has always been so. But the Metropolitan Museum of Art argues otherwise in Venice and the Islamic World, 828-1797 a show that, with classic Met largesse, recreates the spectacle of two different cultures meeting in one fantastic city, where commerce and love of beauty, those great levelers, unite them in a fruitful bond.”

The Republic of Beauty, Melding West and East

The article begins with..Told often enough that the West and Islam are natural enemies, we start to believe it...and I'm very surprised. Who is saying so? Natural enemies? What's that? And what they mean with West? I'm Italian, from the south, what do I belong to, West or Middle East? The Mediterranean sea has seen all the populations living on its shores coming in contact sooner or later, the culture that developed is a result of a mixing of everything, with peaks of greatness and dips into nothingness for each of the populations involved. The Mediterranean culture is one of the most ancient and rich of the so called West and it's the result of exchange not of enmity. There have been many wars, sure, but that's just the usual human stupidity and greed not natural hostility.