He then speaks of the different reredoses, tombs of two priors, silver candlesticks, a great silver cross made by Eytor Gonsalves, a goldsmith of Lisbon, much other church plate, and then goes on to say that a lectern was ordered for the choir but was not made and was much needed, as was a silver monstrance, and that the monastery had no money to pay Christovam de Figueiredo for painting the great reredos of the high altar and those of the other chapels, 'and, Sir, it is necessary that they should be painted.'

Besides making so many gifts to Sta. Cruz, Dom Manoel endowed it with many privileges. The priors were exempt from the jurisdiction of the bishop, and had themselves complete control over their own dependent churches. All the canons were chaplains to the king, and after the university came back to Coimbra from Lisbon in 1539 Dom Joao III. made the priors perpetual chancellors.[135]

By 1522 then the church must have been practically ready, though some carving still had to be done.

Marcos Pires died in 1524 and was succeeded by Diogo de Castilho, and in a letter dated from Evora in that year the king orders a hundred gold cruzados to be paid to Diogo and to Master Nicolas[136] for the statues on the west door which were still wanting, and two years later in September another letter granted Diogo the privilege of riding on a mule.[137]

The interest of the church itself is very inferior to that of the different pieces of church furniture, nearly all the work of foreigners, with which it was adorned, and of which some, though not all, survive to the present day.

Inside there is nothing very remarkable in the structure of the church except the fine vaulting with its many moulded ribs, the large windows with their broken Manoelino heads, and the choir gallery which occupies nearly two bays at the west end. Vaulted underneath, it opens to the church by a large elliptical arch which springs from jambs ornamented with beautiful candelabrum shafts.

Of the outside little is to be seen except the west front, one of the least successful designs of that period.

In the centre—now partly blocked up by eighteenth-century additions, and sunk several feet below the street—is a great moulded arch, about eighteen feet across and once divided into two by a central jamb bearing a figure of Our Lord, whence the door was called 'Portal da Majestade'; above the arch a large round-headed window, deeply recessed, lights the choir gallery, and between it and the top of the arch are three renaissance niches, divided by pilasters, and containing three figures—doubtless some of those for which Diogo de Castilho and Master Nicolas were paid one hundred cruzados in 1524. The window with its mouldings is much narrower than the door, and is joined to the tall pinnacles which rise to the right and left of the great opening by Gothic flying buttresses. Between the side pinnacles and the central mass of the window a curious rounded and bent shaft rises from the hood-mould of the door to end in a semi-classic column between two niches, and from the shaft there grow out two branches to support the corbels on which the niche statues stand. All this is very like the great south door of the Jeronymite monastery at Belem, the work of Diogo's brother Joao de Castilho; both have a wide door below with a narrower window above, surrounded by a mass of pinnacles and statues, but here the lower door is far too wide, and the upper window too small, and besides the wall is set back a foot or two immediately on each side of the window so that the surface is more broken up. Again, instead of the whole rising up with a great pinnacled niche to pierce the cornice and to dominate parapet and cresting, the drip-mould of the window only gives a few ugly twists, and leaves a blank space between the window head and the straight line of the cornice and parapet; a line in no way improved by the tall rustic cross or the four broken pinnacles which rise above it. Straight crested parapets also crown the wall where it is set back, but at the sides the two corners grow into eight-sided turrets ending in low crocketed stone roofs. Of course the whole front has suffered much from the raising of the street level, but it can never have been beautiful, for the setting back of part of the wall looks meaningless, and the turrets are too small for towers and yet far too large for angle pinnacles. (Fig. 69.)

Although the soft stone is terribly perished, greater praise can be given to the smaller details, especially to the figures, which show traces of considerable vigour and skill.

If the church shows that Marcos Pires was not a great architect, the cloister still more marks his inferiority to the Fernandes or to Joao de Castilho, though with its central fountain and its garden it is eminently picturesque. Part of it is now, and probably all once was, of two stories. The buttresses are picturesque, polygonal below, a cluster of rounded shafts above, and are carried up in front of the upper cloister to end in a large cross. All the openings have segmental pointed heads with rather poor mouldings. Each is subdivided into two lights with segmental round heads, supporting a vesica-like opening. All the shafts are round, with round moulded bases and round Manoelino caps. The central shaft has a ring moulding half-way up, and all, including the flat arches and the vesicae, are either covered with leaves, or are twisted into ropes, but without any of that wonderful delicacy which is so striking at Batalha. Across one corner a vault has been thrown covering a fountain, and though elsewhere the ribs are plainly moulded, here they are covered with leaf carving, and altogether make this north-east corner the most picturesque part of the whole cloister. (Fig. 70.)

The upper walk with its roof of wood is much simpler, there being three flat arches to each bay upheld by short round shafts.

Now to turn from the church itself and its native builders to the beautiful furniture provided for it by foreign skill. Much of it has vanished. The church plate when it became unfashionable was sent to Goa, the great metal screen made by Antonius Fernandes is gone, and so is the reredos carved by a master from Seville and painted by Christovao de Figueredo. There still hang on the wall of the sacristy two or three



pictures which may have formed part of this reredos. They are high up and very dirty, but seem to have considerable merit, especially one of 'Pentecost' which is signed 'Velascus.' The 'Pentecost' still has for its frame some pieces of beautiful early renaissance moulding not unlike what may still be seen on the reredos at Funchal, and it is just the size of a panel for a large reredos. Of course 'Velascus' is not Grao Vasco, though the name is the same, nor can he be Christovao de Figueredo, but perhaps the painting spoken of by Gregorio Lourenco as done by Christovao may only have been of the framing and not necessarily of the panels.

These are gone, but there are still left the royal tombs, the choir stalls, the pulpit, and three beautiful carved altar-pieces in the cloister.

The royal tombs are both practically alike. In each the king lies under a great round arch, on a high altar-tomb, on whose front, under an egg and tongue moulding a large scroll bearing an inscription is upheld by winged children. The arch is divided into three bands of carving, one—the widest—carved with early renaissance designs, the next which is also carried down the jambs, with very rich Gothic foliage, and the outermost with more leaves. The back of each tomb is divided into three by tall Gothic pinnacles, and contains three statues on elaborate corbels and under very intricate canopies, of which the central rises in a spire to the top of the arch.

On the jambs, under the renaissance band of carving, are two statues one above the other on Gothic corbels but under renaissance canopies.

Beyond the arch great piers rise up with three faces separated by Gothic pinnacles. On each face there is at the bottom—above the interpenetrating bases—a classic medallion encompassed by Manoelino twisting stems and leaves, and higher up two statues one above the other. Of these the lower stands on a Gothic corbel under a renaissance canopy, and the upper, standing on the canopy, has over it another tall canopy Gothic in style. Higher up the piers rise up to the vault with many pinnacles and buttresses, and between them, above the arch, are other figures in niches and two angels holding the royal arms.

The design of the whole is still very Manoelino, and therefore the master of the royal tombs spoken of by Gregorio Lourenco was probably a Portuguese, but the skill shown in modelling the figures and the renaissance details are something quite new. (Fig. 71.)

Many Frenchmen are known to have worked in Santa Cruz. One, Master Nicolas, has been met already working at Belem and at the west door here, and others—Longuim, Philipo Uduarte, and finally Joao de Ruao (Jean de Rouen)—are spoken of as having worked at the tombs.

Though the figures are good with well-modelled draperies, their faces, or those of most of them, are rather expressionless, and some of them look too short—all indeed being less successful than those on the pulpit, the work of Joao de Ruao. It is likely then that the figures are mostly the work of the lesser known men and not of Master Nicolas or of Joao de Ruao, though Joao, who came later to Portugal, may have been responsible for some of the renaissance canopies which are not at all unlike some of his work on the pulpit.

The pulpit projects from the north wall of the church between two of the chapels. In shape it is a half-octagon set diagonally, and is upheld by circular corbelling. It was ready by the time Gregorio Lourenco wrote to Dom Joao III. in 1522, but still wanted a suitable finishing to its door. This Gregorio urged Dom Joao to add, but it was never done, and now the entrance is only framed by a simple classic architrave.

Now Georges d'Amboise, the second archbishop of that name to hold the see of Rouen, began the beautiful tomb, on which he and his uncle kneel in prayer, in the year 1520, and the pulpit at Coimbra was finished before March 1522.

Among the workmen employed on this tomb a Jean de Rouen is mentioned, but he left in 1521. The detail of the tomb at Rouen and that of the pulpit here are alike in their exceeding fineness and beauty, and a man thought worthy of taking part in the carving of the tomb might well be able to carry out the pulpit; besides, on it are cut initials or signs which have been read as J.R.[138] The J or I is distinct, the R much less so, but the carver of the pulpit was certainly a Frenchman well acquainted with the work of the French renaissance. It may therefore be accepted with perhaps some likelihood, that the Jean de Rouen who left Normandy in 1521, came then to Coimbra, carved this pulpit, and is the same who as Joao de Ruao is mentioned in later documents as



still working for Santa Cruz, where he signed a discharge as late as 1549.[139]

The whole pulpit is but small, not more than about five feet high including the corbelled support, and all carved with a minuteness and delicacy not to be surpassed and scarcely to be equalled by such a work as the tomb at Rouen. At the top is a finely moulded cornice enriched with winged heads, tiny egg and tongue and other carving. Below on each of the four sides are niches whose shell tops rest on small pilasters all covered with the finest ornaments, and in each niche sits a Father of the Western Church, St. Augustine, St. Jerome, St. Gregory, and St. Ambrose. Their feet rest on slightly projecting bases, on the front of each of which is a small panel measuring about four inches by two carved with tiny figures and scenes in slight relief. On the shell heads, which project a little in the centre, there stand, above St. Augustine three minute figures of boys with wreaths, the figures being about three or four inches high, above St. Jerome sit two others, with masks hanging from their arms, upholding a shield and a cross of the Order of Christ. Those above St. Gregory support a sphere, and above St. Ambrose one stands alone with a long-necked bird on each side. At each angle two figures, one above the other, each about eight inches high, stand under canopies the delicacy of whose carving could scarcely be surpassed in ivory. They represent, above, Religion with Faith, Hope, and Charity, and below, four prophets. The corbelled support is made up of a great many different mouldings, most of them enriched in different ways.

Near the top under the angles of the pulpit are beautiful cherubs' heads. About half-way down creatures with wings and human heads capped with winged helmets grow out of a mass of flat carving, and at the very bottom is a kind of winged dragon whose five heads stretch up across the lower mouldings. (Fig. 72.)

Altogether the pulpit is well worthy of the praise given it by Gregorio; there may be more elaborate pieces of carving in Spain, but scarcely one so beautiful in design and in execution, and indeed it may almost be doubted whether France itself can produce a finer piece of work. The figure sculpture is worthy of the best French artists, the whole design is elaborate, but not too much so, considering the smallness of the scale, and the execution is such as could only have been carried out in alabaster or the finest limestone, such as that found at Anca not far off, and used at Coimbra for all delicate work.[140]

In the discharge signed by Joao de Ruao in 1549 reredoses are spoken of as worked by him. There is nothing in the document to show whether these are the three great pieces of sculpture in the cloisters each of which must once have been meant for a reredos. Unfortunately in the seventeenth century they were walled up, and were only restored to view not many years ago, and though much destroyed, enough survives to show that they were once worthy of the pulpit.

They represent 'Christ shown to the people by Pilate,' the 'Bearing of the Cross,' and the 'Entombment.'

In each there is at the bottom a shelf narrower than the carving above, and uniting the two, a broad band wider at the top than at the bottom, most exquisitely carved in very slight relief, with lovely early renaissance scrolls, and with winged boys holding shields or medallions in the centre. Above is a large square framework, flanked at the sides by tall candelabrum shafts on corbels, and finished at the top by a moulding or, above the 'Bearing of the Cross,' by a crested entablature, with beautifully carved frieze. Within this framework the stone is cut back with sloping sides, carved with architectural detail, arches, doors, entablatures in perspective. At the top is a panelled canopy.

In the 'Ecce Homo' on the left is a flight of steps leading up to the judgment seat of Pilate, who sits under a large arch, with Our Lord and a soldier on his right. The other half of the composition has a large arch in the background, and in front a crowd of people some of whom are seen coming through the opening in the sloping side.

In the 'Bearing of the Cross' the background is taken up by the walls and towers of Jerusalem. Our Lord with a great T-shaped cross is in the centre, with St. Veronica on the right and a great crowd of people behind, while other persons look out of the perspective arches at the side. (Fig. 73.)

In all, especially perhaps in the 'Ecce Homo,' the composition is good, and the modelling of the figures excellent. Unfortunately the faces are much decayed and perhaps the figures may be rather wanting in repose, and yet even in their decay they are very beautiful pieces of work, and show that Joao de Ruao—if he it was who carved them—was as able to design a large composition as to carve a small pulpit. Under the 'Ecce Homo,' in a tablet held by winged boys who grow out of the ends of the scrolls, there is a date which seems to read 1550. The 'Quitacam' was signed on the 11th of September 1549, and if 1550 is the date here carved it may show when the work was finally completed.[141]

There once stood in the refectory a terra cotta group of the 'Last Supper.' Now nothing is left but a few fragments in the Museum, but there too the figures of the apostles were well modelled and well executed.

Of the other works ordered by Dom Manoel the only one which still remains are the splendid stalls in the western choir gallery. These in two tiers of seats run round the three walls of the gallery except where interrupted by the large west window. They can hardly be the 'cadeiras' or seats mentioned in Gregorio's letter of July 1518, for it is surely impossible that they should have been begun in January and finished in July however active the Seville master may have been, and judging from their carving they seem more Flemish than Spanish, and we know that Flemings had been working not very long before on the cathedral reredos. The lower tier of seats has Gothic panelling below, good Miserere seats, arms, on each of which sits a monster, and on the top between each and supporting the book-board of the upper row, small figures of men, with bowed backs, beggars, pilgrims, men and women all most beautifully carved. The panels behind the upper tier are divided by twisted Manoelino shafts bearing Gothic pinnacles, and the upper part of each panel is enriched with deeply undercut leaves and finials surrounding armillary spheres. Above the panels, except over the end stalls where sat the Dom Prior and the other dignitaries, and which have higher canopies, there runs a continuous canopy panelled with Gothic quatrefoils, and having in front a fringe of interlacing cusps. Between this and the cresting is a beautiful carved cornice of leaves and of crosses of the Order of Christ, and the cresting itself is formed by a number of carved scenes, cities, forests, ships, separated by saintly figures and surmounted by a carved band from which grow up great curling leaves and finials. These scenes are supposed to represent the great discoveries of Vasco da Gama and of Pedro Alvares Cabral in India and in Brazil, but if this is really so the carvers must have been left to their own imagination, for the towns do not look particularly Indian, nor do the forests suggest the tropical luxuriance of Brazil: perhaps the small three-masted ships alone, with their high bows and stern, represent the reality. (Fig. 74.)

As a whole the design is entirely Gothic, only at the ends of each row of stalls is there anything else, and there the panels are carved with renaissance arabesque, which, being gilt like all the other carving, stands out well from the dark brown background.

These are almost the only mediaeval stalls left in the country. Those at Thomar were burnt by the French, those in the Carmo at Lisbon destroyed by the earthquake, and those at Alcobaca have disappeared. Only at Funchal are there stalls of the same date, for those at Vizeu seem rather later and are certainly poorer, their chief interest now being derived from the old Chinese stamped paper with which their panels are covered.

[Sidenote: Coimbra, Se Velha.]

If the stalls at Santa Cruz are the only examples of this period still left on the mainland, the Se Velha possesses the only great mediaeval reredos. In Spain great structures are found in almost every cathedral rising above the altar to the vault in tier upon tier of niche and panel. Richly gilded, with fine paintings on the panels, with delicate Gothic pinnacles and tabernacle work, they and the metal screens which half hide them do much to make Spanish churches the most interesting in the world. Unfortunately in Portugal the bad taste of the eighteenth century has replaced all those that may have existed by great and heavy erections of elaborately carved wood. All covered with gold, the Corinthian columns, twisted and wreathed with vines, the overloaded arches and elaborate entablatures are now often sadly out of place in some old interior, and make one grieve the more over the loss of the simpler or more appropriate reredos which came before them.

Dom Jorge d'Almeida held the see of Coimbra and the countship of Arganil—for the bishops are always counts of



Arganil—from 1481 till 1543, when he died at the age of eighty-five; during these sixty-two years he did much to beautify his church, and of these additions the oldest is the reredos put up in 1508. This we learn from a 'quitaca' or discharge granted in that year to 'Mestre Vlimer framengo, ora estante nesta cidada, e seu Parceiro Joao Dipri,' that is, to 'Master Vlimer a Fleming, now in this city, and to his partner John of Ypres.'

The reredos stands well back in the central apse; it is divided into five upright parts, of which that in the centre is twice as wide as any of the others, while the outermost with the strips of panelling and carving which come beyond them are canted, following the line of the apse wall. Across these five upright divisions and in a straight line is thrown a great flattened trefoil arch joined to the back with Gothic vaulting. In the middle over the large division it is fringed with the intersecting circles of curved branches, while from the top to the blue-painted apse vault with its gilded ribs and stars a forest of pinnacles, arches, twisting and intertwining branches and leaves rises high above the bishop's arms and mitre and the two angels who uphold them.

Below the arch the five parts are separated by pinnacle rising above pinnacle. At the bottom under long canopies of extraordinary elaboration are scenes in high relief. Above them in the middle the apostles watch the Assumption of the Virgin; saints stand in the other divisions, one in each, and over their heads are immense canopies rising across a richly cusped background right up to the vaulting of the arch. Though not so high, the canopy over the Virgin is far more intricate as it forms a great curve made up of seven little cusped arches with innumerable pinnacles and spires. (Fig. 75.)

Being the work of Flemings, the reredos is naturally full of that exuberant Flemish detail which may be seen in a Belgian town-hall or in the work of an early Flemish painter; and if the stalls at Santa Cruz are not by this same Master Vlimer, the intertwining branches on the cresting and the sharply carved leaves on the panels show that he had followers or pupils.

Like most Flemish productions, the reredos is wanting in grace. Though it throws a fine deep shadow the great arch is very ugly in shape and the great canopies are far too large, and yet the mass of gold, well lit by the windows of the lantern and rising to the dim blue vault, makes a singularly fine ending to the old and solemn church.

More important than the reredos in the art history of the country are some other changes made by Dom Jorge, which show that the Frenchmen working at Santa Cruz were soon employed elsewhere.

On the north side of the nave a door leads out of the church, and this these Frenchmen entirely transformed.

At the bottom, between two much decayed Corinthian pilasters, is the door reached by a flight of steps. The arch is of several orders, one supported by thin columns, one by square fluted pilasters. Within these, at right angles to each other, are broad faces carved and resting on piers at whose corners are tiny round columns, in two stories, with carved reliefs between the upper pair. In the tympanum is a beautiful Madonna and Child, and two round medallions with heads adorn the spandrils above the arch. Beyond each pilaster is a canted side joining the porch to the wall and having a large niche and figure near the top. The whole surface has been covered with exquisite arabesques like those below the reredoses in the cloister at Santa Cruz, but they have now almost entirely perished.

Above the entablature a second story rises forming a sort of portico. At the corners are square fluted Corinthian pilasters; between them in front runs a balustrading, divided into three by the pedestals of two slender columns, Corinthian also, and there are others next the pilasters. The entablature has been most delicate, with the finest wreaths carved on the frieze. Over the canted sides are built small round-domed turrets.

Above this the third story reaches nearly up to the top of the wall. In the middle is an arch resting on slender columns and supporting a pediment; on either side are square niches with columns at the sides, beyond them fan-shaped semicircles, and at the corners vases. Behind this there rise to the top of the battlements four panelled Doric pilasters with cornice above, and two deep round-headed niches with figures, one on each side.

Inside the church are pilasters and a wealth of delicate relief.

Perhaps the whole may not be much more fortunate than most attempts to build up a tall composition by piling columns one above the other, and the top part is certainly too heavy



for what comes below it. Yet the details are or were beautiful, and the portico above the door most graceful and pleasing, though, being unfortunately on the north side, the effect is lost of the deep shadow the sun would have thrown and the delicacy of the mouldings almost wasted.

Less important are the changes made to the north transept door. Fluted pilasters and Corinthian columns were inserted below, a medallion with a figure cut on the tympanum, and small coupled shafts resting on the Doric capitals of the pilasters built to uphold the entablature.

Inside the most important, as well as the most beautiful addition, was a reredos built by Dom Jorge as his monument in the chapel of Sao Pedro, the small apse to the north of the high altar.

Just above the altar table—which is of stone supported on one central shaft—are three panels filled in high relief with sculptured scenes from the life of St. Peter, the central and widest panel representing his martyrdom, while on the uprights between them are small figures under canopies.

The upper and larger part is arranged somewhat like a Roman triumphal arch. There are three arches, one larger and higher in the middle, with a lower and narrower one on each side, separated by most beautiful tall candelabrum shafts with very delicate half-Ionic capitals. In the centre, in front of the representation of some town, probably Rome, is Our Lord bearing His Cross and St. Peter kneeling at His feet—no doubt the well-known legend 'Domine quo vadis?' In the side arches stand two figures with books: one is St. Paul with a sword, and the other probably St. Peter himself. Above each of the side arches there is a small balustraded loggia, scarcely eighteen inches high, in each of which are two figures, talking, all marvellously lifelike. Beautiful carvings enrich the friezes everywhere, and small heads in medallions all the spandrils. At the top, in a hollow circle upheld by carved supports, crowned and bearing an orb in His left hand, is God the Father Himself. (Fig. 76.)

Less elaborate than the pulpit and less pictorial than the altar-pieces in the cloister of Santa Cruz, this reredos is one of the most successful of all the French works at Coimbra, and its beauty is enhanced by the successful lighting through a large window cut on purpose at the side, and by the beautiful tiles—probably contemporary—with which the chapel is lined.

In front of the altar lies Dom Jorge d'Almeida, under a flat stone, bearing his arms, and this inscription in Latin, 'Here lies Jorge d'Almeida by the goodness of the divine power bishop and count. He lived eighty-five years, and died eight days before the Kalends of Sextillis A.D. 1543, having held both dignities sixty-two years.'



CHAPTER XV

THE INFLUENCE OF THE FOREIGNER

Very quickly the fame of these French workers spread across the country, and they or their pupils were employed to design tombs, altar-pieces, or chapels outside of Coimbra. Perhaps the da Silvas, lords of Vagos, were among the very first to employ them, and in their chapel of Sao Marcos, some eight or nine miles from Coimbra, more than one example of their handiwork may still be seen.

[Sidenote: Tomb in Nossa Senhora dos Olivaes, Thomar.]

However, before visiting Sao Marcos mention must be made of two tombs, one in Nossa Senhora dos Olivaes at Thomar, and one in the Graca church at Santarem. Both are exceedingly French in design, and both were erected not long after the coming of the foreigners.

The tomb in Thomar is the older. It is that of Diogo Pinheiro, the first bishop of Funchal—which he never visited—who died in 1525. No doubt the monument was put up soon after. It is placed rather high on the north wall of the chancel; at the very bottom is a moulding enriched with egg and tongue, separated by a plain frieze—crossed by a shield with the bishop's arms—from the plinth and from the pedestals of the side shafts and their supporting mouldings. On the plinth under a round arched recess stands a sarcophagus with a tablet in front bearing the date A.D. 1525, while behind in an elegant shell-topped niche is a figure kneeling on a beautiful corbel. The front of this arch is adorned with cherubs' heads, the jambs with arabesques, and heads look out of circles in the spandrils. At the sides are Corinthian pilasters, and in front of them beautiful candelabrum shafts. The cornice with a well-carved frieze is simple, and in the pediment are again carved Dom Diogo's arms, surmounted by his bishop's hat.

At the ends are vase-shaped finials, and another supported by dragons rises from the pediment. (Fig. 77.)

This monument is indeed one of the most pleasing pieces of renaissance work in existence, and one would be tempted to attribute it to Joao de Castilho were it not that it is more French than any of his work, and that in 1525 he can hardly have come back to Thomar, where the Claustro da Micha, the first of the new additions, was only begun in 1528. It will be safer then to attribute it to one of the Coimbra Frenchmen.

[Sidenote: Tomb in Graca, Santarem.]

The same must be said of the tomb in the Graca church at Santarem. It was built in 1532 in honour of three men already long dead—Pero Carreiro, Gonzalo Gil Barbosa his son-in-law, and Francisco Barbosa his grandson. The design is like that of Bishop Pinheiro's monument, omitting all beneath the plinth, except that the back is plain, the arch elliptical, and the pediment small and round. The coffer has a long inscription,[142] the jambs and arch are covered with arabesques, the side shafts are taller and even more elegant than at Thomar, and in the round pediment is a coat of arms, and on one side the head of a young man wearing a helmet, and on the other the splendidly modelled head of an old man; though much less pleasing as a whole, this head for excellent realism is better than anything found on the bishop's tomb.

If we cannot tell which Frenchman designed these tombs, we know the name of one who worked for the da Silvas at Sao Marcos, and we can also see there the work of some of their pupils and successors.

[Sidenote: Sao Marcos.]

Sao Marcos, which lies about two miles to the north of the road leading from Coimbra through Tentugal to Figueira de Foz at the mouth of the Mondego, is now unfortunately much ruined. Nothing remains complete but the church, for the monastic buildings were all burned not so long ago by some peasantry to injure the landlord to whom they belonged, and with them perished many a fine piece of carving.

The da Silvas had long had here a manor-house with a chapel, and in 1452 Dona Brites de Menezes, the wife of Ayres Gomes da Silva, the fourth lord of Vagos, founded a small Jeronymite monastery. Of her chapel, designed by



Gil de Souza, little now remains, for the chancel was rebuilt in the next century and the nave in the seventeenth. Only the tomb of Dona Brites' second son, Fernao Telles de Menezes, still survives, for the west door, with a cusped arch, beautifully undercut foliage, and knotted shafts at the side, was added in 1570.

The tomb of Fernao Telles, which was erected about the year 1471, is still quite Gothic. In the wall there opens a large pointed and cusped arch, within which at the top there hangs a small tent which, passing through a ring, turns into a great stone curtain upheld by hairy wild men. Inside this curtain Dom Fernao lies in armour on a tomb whose front is covered with beautifully carved foliage, and which has a cornice of roses. On it are three coats of arms, Dom Fernao's, those of his wife, Maria de Vilhena, and between them his and hers quartered.

Most of the tombs, five in all, are found in the chancel which was rebuilt by Ayres da Silva, fifth lord of Vagos, the grandson of Dona Brites, in 1522 and 1523. These are, on the north side, first, at the east end, Dona Brites herself, then her son Joao da Silva in the middle, and her grandson Ayres at the west, the tombs of Ayres and his father being practically identical. Opposite Dona Brites lies the second count of Aveiras, who died in 1672 and whose tomb is without interest, and opposite Ayres, his son Joao da Silva, sixth lord of Vagos, who died in 1559. At the east end is a great reredos given by Ayres and containing figures of himself and of his wife Dona Guiomar de Castro, while opening from the north side of the nave is a beautiful domed chapel built by Dona Antonia de Vilhena as a tomb-house for her husband, Diogo da Silva, who died in 1556. In it also lies his elder brother Lourenco, seventh lord of Vagos.

The chancel, which is of two bays, one wide, and one to the east narrower, has a low vault with many well-moulded ribs springing from large corbels, some of which are Manoelino, while others have on them shields and figures of the renaissance. It still retains an original window on each side, small, round-headed, with a band of beautiful renaissance carving on the splay.

Dona Brites lies on a plain tomb in front of which there is a long inscription. Above her rises a round arch set in a square frame. Large flowers like Tudor roses are cut on the spandrils, the ogee hood-mould is enriched with huge wonderfully undercut curly crockets, all Gothic, but the band between the two mouldings of the arch is carved with renaissance arabesques. The tomb of Ayres himself and that of his father Joao are much more elaborate. Each, lying like Dona Brites on an altar-tomb, is clad in full armour. In front are semi-classic mouldings at the top and bottom, and between them a tablet held by cherubs, that on Dom Joao's bearing a long inscription, while Dom Ayres' has been left blank. The arches over the recumbent figures are slightly elliptical, and like that of the foundress's tomb each is enriched by a band of renaissance carving, but with classic mouldings outside, instead of a simple round, and with a rich fringe of leafy cusps within. At the ends and between the tombs are square buttresses or pilasters ornamented on each face with renaissance corbels and canopies. The background of each recess is covered with delicate flowing leaves in very slight relief, and has in the centre a niche, with rustic shafts and elaborate Gothic base and canopy under which stands a figure of Our Lord holding an orb in His left hand and blessing with His right. The buttresses, on which stand curious vase-shaped finials, are joined by a straight moulded cornice, above which rises a rounded pediment floriated on the outer side. From the pediment there stands out a helmet whose mantling entirely covers the flat surface, and below it hangs a shield, charged with the da Silva arms, a lion rampant. (Fig. 78.)

Here, as in the royal tombs at Coimbra, Manoelino and renaissance forms have been used together, but here the renaissance largely predominates, for even the cusping is not Gothic, although, as is but natural, the general design still is after the older style. Though very elaborate, these tombs cannot be called quite satisfactory. The figure sculpture is poor, and it is only the arabesques which show skill in execution. Probably then it was the work not of one of the well-known Frenchmen, but of one of their pupils.[143]

Raczynski[144] thought that here in Sao Marcos he had found some works of Sansovino: a battlepiece in relief, a statue of St. Mark, and the reredos. The first two are gone, but if they were as unlike Italian work as is the reredos, one may be sure that they were not by him. A recently found document[145] confirms what its appearance suggests, namely, that it is French. It was in fact the work of Mestre Nicolas, the Nicolas Chantranez who worked first at Belem and then on the Portal da Magestade at Santa Cruz, and who carved an altar-piece in the Pena chapel at Cintra. Though much larger in general design, it is not altogether unlike the altar-piece in the Se Velha. It is divided into two stories. In the lower are four divisions, with a small tabernacle in the middle, and in each division, which has either a curly broken pediment, or a shell at its head, are sculptured scenes from the life of St. Jerome.

The upper part contains only three divisions, one broad under an arch in the centre, and one narrower and lower on each side. As in the cathedral, slim candelabrum shafts stand between each division and at the ends, but the entablatures are less refined, and the sharp pediments at the two sides are unpleasing, as is the small round one and the vases at the top. The large central arch is filled with a very spirited carving of the 'Deposition.' In front of the three crosses which rise behind with the thieves still hanging to the two at the sides, is a group of people—officials on horseback on the left, and weeping women on the right. In the division to the left kneels Ayres himself presented by St. Jerome, and in the other on the right Dona Guiomar de Castro, his wife, presented by St. Luke. Throughout all the figure sculpture is excellent, as good as anything at Coimbra, but compared with the reredos in the Se Velha, the architecture is poor in the extreme: the central division is too large, and the different levels of the cornice, rendered necessary of course by the shape of the vault, is most unpleasing. No one, however, can now judge of the true effect, as it has all been carefully and hideously painted with the brightest of colours. (Fig. 79.)

Being architecturally so inferior to the Se Velha reredos, it is scarcely possible that they should be by the same hand, and therefore it seems likely that both the work in St. Peter's chapel and the pulpit in Santa Cruz may have been executed by the same man, namely by Joao de Ruao.[146]

[Sidenote: Pena Chapel, Cintra.]

Leaving Sao Marcos for a minute to finish with the works of Nicolas Chantranez, we turn to the small chapel of Nossa Senhora da Pena, founded by Dom Manoel in 1503 as a cell of the Jeronymite monastery at Belem. Here in 1532 his son Joao III. dedicated a reredos of alabaster and black marble as a thankoffering for the birth of a son.[147]

Like Nicolas' work at Sao Marcos the altar piece is full of exquisite carving, more beautiful than in his older work. In the large central niche, with its fringe of cusps, is the 'Entombment,' where Our Lord is being laid by angels in a beautiful sarcophagus. Above this niche sit the Virgin and Child, on the left are the Annunciation above and the Birth at Bethlehem below, and on the right the Visit of the Magi and the Flight into Egypt. Nothing can exceed the delicacy of these alabaster carvings or of the beautiful little reliefs that form the pradella. Many of the little columns too are beautifully wrought, with good capitals and exquisitely worked drums, and yet, though the separate details may be and are fine, the whole is even more unsatisfactory than is his altar-piece at Sao Marcos, and one has to look closely and carefully to see its beauties. As the one at Sao Marcos is spoiled by paint, this one is spoiled by the use of different-coloured marble; besides, the different parts are even worse put together. There is no repose anywhere, for the little columns are all different, and the bad effect is increased by the way the different entablatures are broken out over the many projections.

[Sidenote: Sao Marcos.]

Interesting and even beautiful as are the tombs on the north side of the chancel of Sao Marcos, the chapel dos Reis Magos is even more important historically. This chapel, as stated above, was built by Dona Antonia de Vilhena in 1556 as a monument to her husband. Dona Antonia was in her time noted for her devotion to her husband's memory, and for her patriotism in that she sent her six sons to fight in Morocco, from whence three never returned. Her brother-in-law, Lourenco da Silva, also, who lies on the east side of the same chapel, fell in Africa in the fatal battle of Alcacer-Quebir in 1578, where Portugal lost her king and soon after her independence.

The chapel is entered from the nave by a large arch enriched in front with beautiful cherubs' heads and wreaths of flowers, and on the under side with coffered panels. This arch springs from a beautifully modelled entablature borne on either side by a Corinthian pilaster, panelled and carved, and by a column fluted above, and wreathed with hanging fruits and flowers below, while similar arches form recesses on the three remaining sides of the chapel, one—to the north—containing the altar, and the other two the tombs of Diogo and of Lourenco da Silva.

On the nave side, outside the columns, there stands on either side—placed like the columns on a high pedestal—a pilaster, panelled and carved with exquisite arabesques. These pilasters have no capitals, but instead well-moulded corbels, carved with griffin heads, uphold the entablature, and, by a happy innovation, on the projection thus formed are pedestals bearing short Corinthian columns. These support the main entablature whose cornice and frieze are enriched, the one with egg and tongue and with dentils, and the other with strapwork and with leaves. In the spandrils above the arch are medallions surrounding the heads of St. Peter and of St. Paul, St. Peter being especially expressive.

Inside, the background of each tomb recess is covered with strapwork, surrounding in one case an open and in another a blank window, but unfortunately the reredos representing the Visit of the Magi is gone, and its place taken by a very poor picture of Our Lady of Lourdes.

The pendentives with their cherub heads are carried by corbels in the corners, and the dome is divided by bold ribs, themselves enriched with carving, into panels filled with strapwork. (Fig. 80.)

This chapel then is of great interest, not only because of the real beauty of its details but also because it was the first built of a type which was repeated more than once elsewhere, as, for instance, at Marceana near Alemquer, on the Tagus, and in the church of Nossa Senhora dos Anjos at Montemor-o-Velho, not far from Sao Marcos. Of the chapels at Montemor one at least was built by the same family, and in another where the reredos—a very fine piece of carving—represents a Pieta, small angels are seen to weep as they look from openings high up at the sides.

Perhaps the most successful feature of the design is the happy way in which corbels take the place of capitals on the lower pilasters of the front. By this expedient it was possible to keep the upper column short without having to compare its proportions with those of the pilaster below, and also by projecting these columns to give the upper part an importance and an emphasis it would not otherwise have had.

There is no record of who designed this or the similar chapels, but by 1556 enough time had passed since the coming of the French for native pupils to have learned much from them. There is in the design something which seems to show that it is not from the hand of a Frenchman, but from that of some one who had learned much from Master Nicolas or from Joao de Ruao, but who had also learned something from elsewhere. While the smaller details remain partly French, the dome with its bold ribs suggests Italy, and it is known that Dom Manoel, and after him Dom Joao, sent young men to Italy for study. In any case the result is something neither Italian nor French.

Even more Italian is the tomb of Dona Antonia's father-in-law, Joao da Silva, sixth lord of Vagos, erected in 1559 and probably by the same sculptor. Joao da Silva lies in armour under a round arch carved with flowers and cherubs. In front of his tomb is a long inscription on a tablet held by beautifully modelled boys. On each side of the arch is a Corinthian pilaster, panelled and carved below and having at the top a shallow niche in which stand saints. On the entablature, enriched with medallions and strapwork, is a frame supported by boys and containing the da Silva arms. But the most interesting and beautiful part of the monument is the back, above the effigy. Here, in the upper part, is a shallow recess flanked by corbel-carried pilasters, and containing a relief of the Assumption of the Virgin. Now, the execution of the Virgin and of the small angels who bear her up may not be of the best, but the character of the whole design is quite Italian, and could only have been carved by some one who knew Italian work. On either side of this recess are round-headed niches containing saints, while boys sit in the spandrils above the arch.

Any one seeing this tomb will be at once struck with the Italian character of the design, especially perhaps with the boys who hold the tablet and with those who sit in the spandrils.[148]



Even without leaving their country, Portuguese designers would already have had no great difficulty in finding pieces of real Italian work. Not to speak of the white marble door in the old palace of Cintra, possibly the work of Sansovino himself, with its simple mouldings and the beautiful detail of its architrave, there exist at Evora two doorways originally belonging to the church of Sao Domingos, which must either be the work of Italians or of some man who knew Italy. (Fig. 81.)

[Sidenote: Evora, Sao Domingos.]

Built of white marble from Estremoz and dating from about 1530, the panelled jambs have moulded caps on which rests the arch. Like the jambs, the arch has a splay which is divided into small panels. Above in the spandrils are ribboned circles enclosing well-carved heads. On either side are pilasters with Corinthian capitals of the earlier Italian kind. The entablature is moulded only, and instead of a pediment two curves lead up to a horizontal moulding supporting a shell, and above it a cherub's head.

Such real Italian doors, which would look quite at home in Genoa, seem almost unique, but there are many examples of work which, like the tomb and the chapel at Sao Marcos, seem to have been influenced not only by the French school at Coimbra, but also by Italian work.

[Sidenote: Portalegre.]

[Sidenote: Tavira.]

[Sidenote: Lagos.]

Not very far from Evora in Portalegre, where a bishop's see was founded by Dom Joao III. in 1549, there is a very fine monument of this kind to a bishop of the Mello family in the seminary, and also a doorway, while at Tavira in the Algarve the Misericordia has an interesting door, not unlike that at Evora, but more richly ornamented by having a sculptured frieze and a band of bold acanthus leaves joining the two capitals above the arch. There is another somewhat similar, but less successful, in the church of Sao Sebastiao at Lagos.

[Sidenote: Goes.]

[Sidenote: Trofa.]

Nearer Coimbra there are some fine monuments to the Silveira family at Goes not far from Louza, and four less interesting to the Lemos in the little parish church of Trofa near Agueda. At Trofa there is a pair of tombs on each side of the chancel, round-arched, with pilasters and with heads in the spandrils, and covered with arabesques. Each pair is practically alike except that the tombs on the north side, being placed closer together leave no room for a central pilaster and have small shafts instead of panelled jambs, and that the pair on the south have pediments. The best feature is a figure of the founder of the chancel kneeling at prayer with his face turned towards the high altar.

[Sidenote: Caminha.]

Even in the far north the doors of the church at Caminha show how important had been the coming of the Frenchmen to Coimbra. They seem later than the church, but though very picturesque are clearly the work of some one who was not yet quite familiar with renaissance forms. The south door is the more interesting and picturesque. The arch and jambs are splayed, but there are no capitals; heads look out of circles in the spandrils; and the splay as well as the panels of the side pilasters are enriched with carvings which, partly perhaps owing to the granite in which they are cut, are much less delicate than elsewhere. The Corinthian capitals of the pilasters are distinctly clumsy, as are the mouldings, but the most interesting part of the whole design is the frieze, which is so immensely extended as to leave room for four large niches separated by rather clumsy shafts and containing figures of St. Mark and St. Luke in the middle and of St. Peter and St. Paul at the ends. Above in the pediment are a Virgin and Child with kneeling angels. Besides the innovation of the enlarged frieze, which reminds one of a door in the Certosa near Pavia, the clumsiness of the mouldings and the comparative poorness of the sculpture, though the figures are much better than any previously worked by native artists, suggest that the designer and workmen were Portuguese.

The same applies to the west door, which is wider and where the capitals are of a much better shape, though the pilasters are rather too tall. The sculpture frieze is a little wider than usual, and instead of a pediment there is a picturesque cresting, above which are cut four extraordinary monsters. (Fig. 82.)

[Sidenote: Moncorvo.]

A somewhat similar but much plainer door has been built against the older and round-arched entrance of the Misericordia at Moncorvo in Traz os Montes. The parish church of the same place begun in 1544 is both outside and in a curious mixture of Gothic and Classic. The three aisles are of the same height with round-arched Gothic vaults, but the columns are large and round with bases and capitals evidently copied from Roman doric, though the abacis have been made circular.

Outside the buttresses are still Gothic in form, but the west door is of the fully developed renaissance. The opening is



flanked by coupled columns which support an entablature on which rest four other shorter columns separating three white marble niches. Above this is a window flanked by single columns which carry a pediment. Though built of granite, the detail is good and the whole doorway not unpleasing.[149]

But, that it was not only such details as doors and monuments that began to show the result of the coming of the Frenchmen is seen in the work of Joao de Castilho, after he first left Thomar for Belem. There he had found Master Nicolas Chantranez already at work, and there he learned, perhaps from him, so to change his style that by the time he returned to Thomar to work for Dom Joao III. in 1528 he was able to design buildings practically free from that Gothic spirit which is still found in his latest work at Belem.



CHAPTER XVI

LATER WORK OF JOAO DE CASTILHO AND THE EARLIER CLASSIC

To Dom Manoel, who died in 1521, had succeeded his son Dom Joao III. The father had been renowned for his munificence and his splendour, the son cared more for the Church and for the suppression of heresy. By him the Inquisition was introduced in 1536 to the gradual crushing of all independent thought, and so by degrees to the degradation of his country. He reigned for thirty-six years, a time of wealth and luxury, but before he died the nation had begun to suffer from this very luxury; with all freedom of thought forbidden, with the most brave and adventurous of her sons sailing east to the Indies or west to Brazil, most of them never to return, Portugal was ready to fall an easy prey to Philip of Spain when in 1580 there died the old Cardinal King Henry, last surviving son of Dom Manoel, once called the Fortunate King.

With the death of Dom Manoel, or at least with the finishing of the great work which he had begun, the most brilliant and interesting period in the history of Portuguese architecture comes to an end. When the younger Fernandes died seven years after his master in 1538, or when Joao de Castilho saw the last vault built at Belem, Gothic, even as represented by Manoelino, disappeared for ever, and renaissance architecture, taught by the French school at Coimbra, or learned in Italy by those sent there by Dom Manoel, became universal, to flourish for a time, and then to fall even lower than in any other country.

Except the Frenchmen at Coimbra no one played a greater part in this change than Joao de Castilho, who, no doubt, first learned about the renaissance from Master Nicolas at Belem; Thomar also, his own home, lies about half-way between Lisbon and Coimbra, so that he may well have visited his brother Diogo at Santa Cruz and seen what other Frenchmen were doing there and so become acquainted with better architects than Master Nicolas; but in any case, who ever it may have been who taught him, he planned at Thomar, after his return there, the first buildings which are wholly in the style of the renaissance and are not merely decorated with renaissance details.

[Sidenote: Alcobaca.]

But before following him back to Thomar, his additions to the abbey of Alcobaca must be mentioned, as there for the last time, except in some parts of Belem, he allowed himself to follow the older methods, though even at this early date—1518 and 1519—renaissance forms are beginning to creep in.

On the southern side of the ambulatory one of the radiating chapels was pulled down in 1519 to form a passage, irregular in shape and roofed with a vault of many ribs. From this two doors lead, one on the north to the sacristy, and one on the south to a chapel. Unfortunately both sacristy and chapel have been rebuilt and now contain nothing of interest, except, in the sacristy, some fine presses inlaid with ivory, now fast falling to pieces. The two doors are alike, and show that Joao de Castilho was as able as any of his contemporaries to design a piece of extreme realism. On the jambs is carved renaissance ornament, but nowhere else is there anything to show that Joao and Nicolas had met at Belem some two years before. The head of the arch is wavy and formed mostly of convex curves. Beyond the strip of carving there grows up on either side a round tree, with roots and bark all shown; at the top there are some leaves for capitals, and then each tree grows up to meet in the centre and so form a great ogee, from which grow out many cut-off branches, all sprouting into great curly leaves.

This is realism carried to excess, and yet the leaves are so finely carved, the whole design so compact, and the surrounding whitewashed wall with its dado of tiles so plain, that the effect is quite good. (Fig. 83.)

The year before he had begun for Cardinal Henry, afterwards king, and then commendator of the abbey, a second story to the great cloister of Dom Diniz. Reached by a picturesque stair on the south side, the three-centred arches each enclose two or three smaller round arches, with the spandrils merely pierced or sometimes cusped. The mouldings are simple but not at all classic. The shafts which support these round arches are all carried down across the parapet through the rope moulding at the top to the floor level, and are of three or more patterns. Those at the jambs are plain with hollow chamfered edges, as are also a few of the others. They are, however, mostly either twisted, having four round mouldings separated by four hollows, or else shaped like a rather fat baluster; most of the capitals with curious volutes at the corner are evidently borrowed from Corinthian capitals, but are quite unorthodox in their arrangement.

Though this upper cloister adds much to the picturesqueness of the whole it is not very pleasing in itself, as the three-centred arches are often too wide and flat, and yet it is of great interest as showing how Joao de Castilho was in 1518 beginning to accept renaissance forms though still making them assume a Manoelino dress.

[Sidenote: Batalha, Santa Cruz.]

But in the door of the little parish church of Sta. Cruz at Batalha, also built by Joao de Castilho, Manoelino and renaissance details are used side by side with the happiest result. On each jamb are three round shafts and two bands of renaissance carving; of these the inner band is carried round the broken and curved head of the opening, while the outer runs high up to form a square framing. Of the three shafts the inner is carried round the head, the outer round the outside of the framing, while the one in the centre divides into two, one part running round the head, while the other forms the inner edge of the framing, and also forms a great trefoil on the flat field above the opening. In the two corners between the trefoils and the framing are circles enclosing shields, one charged with the Cross of the Order of Christ, the other with the armillary sphere.

The inner side of the trefoil is cusped, crockets and finials enrich the outer moulding of the opening, while beyond the jambs are niches, now empty. (Fig. 84.)

It is not too much to say that, except the great entrance to the Capellas Imperfeitas, this is the most beautiful of all Manoelino doorways; in no other is the detail so refined nor has any other so satisfactory a framing. Unfortunately the construction has not been good, so that the upper part is now all full of cracks and gaping joints.

[Sidenote: Thomar.]

Since Dom Joao III. was more devoted to the Church than



to anything else he determined in 1524 to change the great Order of Christ from a body of military knights bound, as had been the Templars, by certain vows, into a monastic order of regulars. This necessitated great additions to the buildings at Thomar, for the knights had not been compelled to live in common like monks.

Accordingly Joao de Castilho was summoned back from Belem and by 1528 had got to work.

All these additions were made to the west of the existing buildings, and to make room for them Dom Joao had to buy several houses and gardens, which together formed a suburb called Sao Martinho, and some of which were the property of Joao de Castilho, who received for them 463$000 or about L100.[150]



These great additions, which took quite twenty-five years to build, cover an immense area, measuring more than 300 feet long by 300 wide and containing five cloisters. Immediately to the west of the Coro of the church, then probably scarcely finished, is the small cloister of Sta. Barbara; to the north of this is the larger Claustro da Hospedaria, begun about 1539, while to the south and hiding the lower part of the Coro is the splendid two-storied Claustro, miscalled 'dos Filippes,' begun in its present form in 1557 by Diogo de Torralva some time after de Castilho's death.

Further west are two other large cloisters, do Mixo or da Micha to the north and dos Corvos to the south, and west of the Corvos a sort of farmyard called the Pateo dos Carrascos—that is of the evergreen oaks, or since Carrasco also means a hangman, it may be that the executioners of the Inquisition had their quarters there.

Between these cloisters, and dividing the three on the east from the two on the west, is an immense corridor nearly three hundred feet long from which small cells open on each side; in the centre it is crossed by another similar corridor stretching over one hundred and fifty feet to the west, separating the two western cloisters, and with a small chapel to the east.

North of all the cloisters are more corridors and rooms extending eastwards almost to the Templars' castle, but there the outer face dates mostly from the seventeenth century or later.

The first part to be begun was the Claustro da Micha, or loaf, so called from the bread distributed there to the poor. Outside it was begun in 1528, but inside an inscription over the door says it was begun in 1534 and finished in 1546. Being the kitchen cloister it is very plain, with simple round-headed arches. Only the entrance door is adorned with a Corinthian column on either side; its straight head rests on well-carved corbels, and above it is a large inscribed tablet upheld by small boys.

Under the pavement of the cloister as well as under the Claustro dos Corvos is a great cistern. On the south was the kitchen and the oil cellar, on the east the dispensary, and on the west a great oven and wood-store with three large halls above, which seem to have been used by the Inquisition.[151] The lodgings of the Dom Prior were above the cloister to the north.

Like the Claustro da Micha, the Claustro dos Corvos has plain round arches resting on round columns and set usually in pairs with a buttress between each pair. On the south side, below, were the cellars, finished in 1539, and above the library, on the west, various vaulted stores with a passage above leading to the library from the dormitory.

The whole of the east side is occupied by the refectory, about 100 feet long by 30 wide. On each of the long sides there is a pulpit, one bearing the date 1536, enriched with arabesques, angels, and small columns. At the south end are two windows, and at the north a hatch communicating with the kitchen.

The Claustro da Hospedaria, as its name denotes, was where strangers were lodged; like the Claustro dos Corvos each pair of arches is divided by a buttress, and the round columns have simple but effective capitals, in which nothing of the regular Corinthian is left but the abacus, and a large plain leaf at each corner. Still, though plain, this cloister is very picturesque. Its floor, like those of all the cloisters, lies deep below the level of the church, and looking eastward from one of the cell windows the Coro and the round church are seen towering high above the brown tile roofs of the rooms beyond the cloister and of the simple upper cloister, which runs across the eastern walk. (Fig. 85.)

This part of the building, begun about 1539, must have been carried on during Joao de Castilho's absence, as in 1541 he was sent to Mazagao on the Moroccan coast to build fortifications; there he made a bastion 'so strong as to be able not only to resist the Shariff, but also the Turk, so strong was it.'[152]

The small cloister of Santa Barbara is the most pleasing of all those which Joao de Castilho was able to finish. In order not to hide the west front of the church its arches had to be kept very low. They are three-centred and almost flat, while the vault is even flatter, the bays being divided by a stone beam resting on beautifully carved brackets. The upper cloister is not carried across the east side next the church; but in its south-west corner an opening with a good entablature, resting on two columns with fine Corinthian capitals, leads to one of those twisting stairs without a newel of which builders of this time were so fond. Going up this stair one reaches the cloister of the Filippes which Joao did not live to carry out.

More interesting than any of these cloisters are the long dormitory passages. The walls for about one-third of the height are lined with tiles, which with the red paving tiles were bought for about L33 from one Aleixo Antunes. The roofs are throughout of dark panelled wood and semicircular in shape. The only windows—except at the crossing—are at the ends of the three long arms. There is a small round-headed window above, and below one, flat-headed, with a column in the centre and one at each side, the window on the north end having on it the date 1541, eight years after the chapel in the centre had been built.

On this chapel at the crossing has been expended far more ornament than on any other part of the passages. Leading to each arm of the passage an arch, curiously enriched with narrow bands which twice cross each other leaving diamond-shaped hollows, rests on Corinthian pilasters, which have only four flutes, but are adorned with niches, whose elegant canopies mark the level of the springing of the chapel vault. This vault, considerably lower than the passage arches, is semicircular and coffered. Between it and the cornice which runs all round the square above the passage arches is a large oblong panel, in the middle of which is a small round window. Beautifully carved figures which, instead of having legs, end in great acanthus-leaf volutes with dragons in the centre, hold a beautifully carved wreath round this window. In the middle of the architrave below, a tablet, held by exquisite little winged boys, gives the date, 'Era de 1533.' Above the cornice there rises a simple vault with a narrow round-headed window on each side.

This carving over the chapel is one of the finest examples of renaissance work left in the country. It is much bolder than any of the French work left at Coimbra, being in much higher relief than was usual in the early French renaissance, and yet the figures and leaves are carved with the utmost delicacy and refinement. (Fig. 86.)

The same delicacy characterises such small parts of the cloister dos Filippes as were built by Joao de Castilho before he retired in 1551. These are now confined to two stairs leading from the upper to the lower cloister. These stairs



are adorned with pilasters or thin columns against the walls, delicate cornices, medallions, figures, and foliage; in one are square-headed built-up doors or doorlike spaces, with well-moulded architraves, and always in the centre above the opening small figures are carved, in one an exquisite little Cupid holding a torch. At the bottom of the eastern stair, which is decorated with scenes from the life of St. Jerome and with the head of Frei Antonio of Lisbon, first prior of the reformed order, a door led into the lower floor of the unfinished chapter-house. On this same stair there is a date 1545, so the work was probably going on till the very end of Joao's tenure of office, and fine as the present cloister is, it is a pity that he was not able himself to finish it, for it is the chief cloister in the whole building, and on it he would no doubt have employed all the resources of his art. (Fig. 87.)

It is not without interest to learn that, like architects of the present day, Joao de Castilho often found very great difficulties in carrying out his work. Till well within the last hundred years Portugal was an almost roadless country, and four centuries ago, as now, most of the heavy carting was done by oxen, which are able to drag clumsy carts heavily laden up and down the most impassable lanes. Several times does he write to the king of the difficulty of getting oxen. On 4th March 1548 he says:

'I have written some days ago to Pero Carvalho to tell him of the want of carts, since those which we had were away carrying stone for the works at Cardiga and at Almeirim'—a palace now destroyed opposite Santarem—'the works of Thomar remaining without stone these three months. And for want of a hundred cart-loads of stone which I had worked at the quarry—doors and windows—I have not finished the students' studies'—probably in the noviciate near the Claustro da Micha. 'The studies are raised to more than half their height and in eight days' work I shall finish them if only I had oxen, for those I had have died.

'I would ask 20$000 [about L4, 10s.] to buy five oxen, and with three which I have I could manage the carriage of a thousand cart-loads of worked stone, besides that of which I speak of to your Highness, and since there are no carts the men can bring nothing, even were they given 60 reis [about 3d.] a cartload there is no one to do carting....

' ... And if your Highness will give me these oxen I shall finish the work very quickly, that when your Highness comes here you may find something to see and have contentment of it.'

Later he again complains of transport difficulties, for the few carts there were in the town were all being used by the Dom Prior; and in the year when he retired, 1551, he writes in despair asking the king for 'a very strong edict [Alvara] that no one of any condition whatever might be excused, because in this place those who have something of their own are excused by favour, and the poor men do service, which to them seems a great aggravation and oppression. May your Highness believe that I write this as a desperate man, since I cannot serve as I desire, and may this provision be sent to the magistrate and judge that they may have it executed by their officer, since the mayor [Alcaide] here is always away and never in his place.'[153]

These letters make it possible to understand how buildings in those days took such a long time to finish, and how Joao de Castilho—though it was at least begun in 1545—was able to do so little to the Claustro dos Filippes in the following six years.

The last letter also seems to show that some at least of the labour was forced.

Leaving the Claustro dos Filippes for the present, we must return to Batalha for a little, and then mention some buildings in which the early renaissance details recall some of the work at Thomar.

[Sidenote: Batalha.]

The younger Fernandes had died in 1528, leaving the Capellas Imperfeitas very much in the state in which they still remain. Though so much more interested in his monastery at Thomar, Dom Joao ordered Joao de Castilho to go on with the chapels, and in 1533 the loggia over the great entrance door had been finished. Beautiful though it is it did not please the king, and is not in harmony with the older work, and so nothing more was done.

In place of the large Manoelino window, which was begun on all the other seven sides, Joao de Castilho here built two renaissance arches, each of two orders, of which the broader springs from the square pilasters and the narrower from candelabrum shafts. In front there run up to the cornice three beautiful shafts standing on high pedestals which rest



on corbels; the frieze of the cornice is carved much after the manner of the window panel in the dormitory corridor at Thomar, and with long masks where it projects over the shafts.

Below, the carved cornice and architrave are carried across the opening as they are round the whole octagon, but the frieze is open and filled with balusters. Behind, the whole space is spanned by a three-centred arch, panelled like the passage arches at Thomar.

All the work is most exquisite, but it is not easy to see how the horizontal cornice was to be brought into harmony with the higher windows intended on the other seven sides, nor does the renaissance detail, beautiful though it is, agree very well with the exuberant Manoelino of the rest.

With the beginning of the Claustro dos Filippes the work of Joao de Castilho comes to an end. He had been actively employed for about forty years, beginning and ending at Thomar, finishing Belem, and adding to Alcobaca, besides improving the now vanished royal palace and even fortifying Mazagao on the Moroccan coast, where perhaps his work may still survive. In these forty years his style went through more than one complete change. Beginning with late Gothic he was soon influenced by the surrounding Manoelino; at Belem he first met renaissance artists, at Alcobaca he either used Manoelino and renaissance side by side or else treated renaissance in a way of his own, though shortly after, at Belem again, he came to use renaissance details more and more fully. A little later at Thomar, having a free hand—for at Belem he had had to follow out the lines laid down by Boutaca—he discarded Manoelino and Gothic alike in favour of renaissance.

In this final adoption of the renaissance he was soon followed by many others, even before he laid down his charge at Thomar in 1551.

In most of these buildings, however, it is not so much his work at Thomar which is followed—except in the case of cloisters—but rather the chapel of the Conceicao, also at Thomar. Like it they are free from the more exuberant details so common in France and in Spain, and yet they cannot be called Italian.

[Sidenote: Thomar, Conceicao.]

There is unfortunately no proof that the Conceicao chapel is Joao's work; indeed the date inscribed inside is 1572, twenty-one years after his retirement, and nineteen after his death. Still this date is probably a mistake, and some of the detail is so like what is found in the great convent on the hill above that probably it was really designed by him.

This small chapel stands on a projecting spur of the hill half-way down between the convent and the town.

Inside the whole building is about sixty feet long by thirty wide, and consists of a nave with aisles about thirty feet long, a transept the width of the central aisle but barely projecting beyond the walls, a square choir with a chapel on each side, followed by an apse; east of the north choir chapel is a small sacristy, and east of the south a newel-less stair—like that in the Claustro de Sta. Barbara—leading up to the roof and down to some vestries under the choir. Owing to the sacristy and stair the eastern part of the chancel, which is rather narrower than the nave, is square, showing outside no signs of the apse.

The outside is very plain: Ionic pilasters at the angles support a simple cornice which runs round the whole building; the west end and transepts have pediments with small semicircular windows. The tile roofs are surmounted by a low square tower crowned by a flat plastered dome at the crossing and by the domed stair turret at the south-east corner. The west door is plain with a simple architrave. The square-headed windows have a deep splay—the wall being very thick—their architraves as well as their cornices and pediments rest on small brackets set not at right angles with the wall, but crooked so as to give an appearance of false perspective.

The inside is very much more pleasing, indeed it is one of the most beautiful interiors to be found anywhere. (Fig. 88.)

On each side of the central aisle there are three Corinthian columns, with very correct proportions, and exquisite capitals, beautifully carved if not quite orthodox. Corresponding pilasters stand against the walls, as well as at the entrance to the choir, and at the beginning of the apse. These and the columns support a beautifully modelled entablature, enriched only with a dentil course. Central aisle, transepts and choir are all roofed with a larger and the side aisles with a smaller barrel vault, divided into bays by shallow arches. In choir and transepts the vault is coffered, but in the nave each bay is ornamented with three sets of four square panels, set in the shape of a cross, each panel having in it another panel set diagonally to form a diamond. At the crossing, which is crowned by a square coffered dome, the spandrils are filled with curious winged heads, while the semi-dome of the apse is covered with narrow ribs. The windows are exactly like those outside, but the west door has over it a very refined though plain pediment.

So far, beyond the great refinement of the details, there has been nothing very characteristic of Joao de Castilho, but when we find that the pilasters of the choir and apse, as well as the choir and transept arches, are panelled in that very curious way—with strips crossing each other at long intervals to form diamonds—which Joao employed in the passage arches in the Thomar dormitory and in the loggia at Batalha, it would be natural enough to conclude that this chapel is his work, and indeed the best example of what he could do with classic details.

Now under the west window of the north aisle there is a small tablet with the following inscription in Portuguese[154]:—'This chapel was erected in A.D. 1572, but profaned in 1810 was restored in 1848 by L. L. d'Abreu,' etc.

Of course in 1572 Joao de Castilho had been long dead, but the inscription was put up in 1848, and it is quite likely that by then L. L. d'Abreu and his friends had forgotten or did not know that even as late as the sixteenth century dates were sometimes still reckoned by the era of Caesar, so finding it recorded that the chapel had been built in the year 1572 they took for granted that it was A.D. 1572, whereas it may just as well have been E.C. 1572, that is A.D. 1534, just the very time when Joao de Castilho was building the dormitory in the convent and using there the same curious panelling. Besides in 1572 this form of renaissance had long been given up and been replaced by a heavier and more classic style brought from Italy. It seems therefore not unreasonable to claim this as Joao de Castilho's work, and to see in it one of the earliest as well as the most complete example of this form of renaissance architecture, a form which prevailed side by side with the work of the Frenchmen and their pupils for about fifteen years.

Now in some respects this chapel recalls some of the earlier renaissance buildings in Italy, and yet no part of it is quite Italian, nor can it be called Spanish. The barrel vault here and in the dormitory chapel in the convent are Italian features, but they have not been treated exactly as was done there, or as was to be done in Portugal some fifty years later, so that it seems more likely that Joao de Castilho got his knowledge of Italian work at second-hand, perhaps from one of the men sent there by Dom Manoel, and not by having been there himself.

No other building in this style can be surely ascribed to him, and no other is quite so pleasing, yet there are several in which refined classic detail of a similar nature is used, and one of the best of these is the small church of the Milagre at Santarem. As for the cloisters which are mentioned later, they have much in common with Joao de Castilho's work at Thomar, as, for instance, in the Claustros da Micha, or the Claustro da Hospedaria; in the latter especially the upper story suggests the arrangement which became so common.

This placing of a second story with horizontal architrave on the top of an arched cloister is very common in Spain, and might have been suggested by such as are found at Lupiana or at Alcala de Henares,[155] but these are not divided into bays by buttresses, so it is more likely that they were borrowed from such a cloister as that of Sta. Cruz at Coimbra, where the buttresses run up to the roof of the upper story and where the arches of that story are almost flat.

[Sidenote: Santarem, Milagre.]

The Milagre or Miracle church at Santarem is so called because it stands near where the body of St. Irene, martyred by the Romans at Nabantia, now Thomar, after floating down the Nabao, the Zezere, and the Tagus, came to shore and so gave her name to Santarem.

The church is small, being about sixty-five feet long by forty wide. It has three aisles, wooden panelled roofs, an arcade resting on Doric columns, and at the east a sort of transept followed by an apse. The piers to the west side of this transept are made up of four pilasters, all of different heights. The highest, the one on the west side, has a Corinthian capital and is enriched in front by a statue under a canopy standing on a corbel upheld by a slender baluster shaft. The second in height is plain, and supports the arch which crosses the central aisle. The arches opening from the aisles into the transept chapel are lower still, and rest, not on capitals, but on corbels. Like the nave arch, on their spandrels heads are carved looking out of circles. Lowest of all—owing to the barrel vault which covers the central aisle at the crossing—are the arches leading north and south to the chapels. They too spring from corbels and are quite plain.

[Sidenote: Santarem, Marvilla.]

Up in the town on the top of the hill the nave of the church of the Marvilla—whose Manoelino door and chancel have already been mentioned—is of about the same date. This nave is about one hundred feet long by fifty-five wide, has three aisles with wooden ceilings; the arcades of round arches with simple moulded architrave rest on the beautiful Ionic capitals of columns over twenty-six feet high. These capitals, of Corinthian rather than of Ionic proportions, with simple fluting instead of acanthus leaves, have curious double volutes at each angle, and small winged heads in the middle of each side of the abacus.

Altogether the arcades are most stately, and the beauty of the church is further enhanced by the exceptionally fine tiles with which the walls as well as the spandrels above the arches are lined. Up to about the height of fifteen feet, above a stone bench, the tiles, blue, yellow, and orange, are arranged in panels, two different patterns being used alternatively, with beautiful borders, while in each spandrel towards the central aisle an Emblem of the Virgin, Tower of Ivory, Star of the Sea, and so on, is surrounded by blue and yellow intertwining leaves. Above these, as above the panels on the walls, the whole is covered with dark and light tiles arranged in checks, and added as stated by a date over the chancel arch in 1617. The lower tiles are probably of much the same date or a little earlier.

Against one of the nave columns there stands a very elegant little pulpit. It rests on the Corinthian capital of a very bulbous baluster, is square, and has on each side four beautiful little Corinthian columns, fluted and surrounded with large acanthus leaves at the bottom. Almost exactly like it, but round and with balusters instead of columns, is the pulpit in the church of Nossa Senhora dos Olivaes at Thomar. (Fig. 89.)

[Sidenote: Elvas, Sao Domingos.]

The most original in plan as well as in decoration of all the buildings of this time is the church of the nunnery of Sao Domingos at Elvas, like nearly all nunneries in the kingdom now fast falling to pieces. In plan it is an octagon about forty-two feet across with three apses to the east and a smaller octagonal dome in the middle standing on eight white marble columns with Doric capitals. The columns, the architrave below the dome, the arches of the apses and their vaults, are all of white marble covered with exquisite carved ornament partly gilt, while all the walls and the other vaults are lined with tiles, blue and yellow patterns on a white ground. The abacus of each column is set diagonally to the diameter of the octagon, and between it and the lower side of the architrave are interposed thin blocks of stone rounded at the ends.

Like the Conceicao at Thomar this too dates from near the end of Dom Joao's reign, having been founded about 1550.

[Sidenote: Cintra, Penha Longa and Penha Verde.]

Capitals very like those in the nave of the Marvilla, but with a ring of leaves instead of flutes, are found in the cloister of the church at Penha Longa near Cintra, and in the little round chapel at Penha Verde not far off, where lies the heart of Dom Joao de Castro, fourth viceroy of India. Built about 1535, it is a simple little round building with a square recess for the altar opposite the door. Inside, the dome springs from a cornice resting on six columns whose capitals are of the same kind.

Others nearly the same are found in the house of the Conde de Sao Vicente at Lisbon, only there the volutes are replaced by winged figures, as is also the case in the arcades of the Misericordia at Tavira, the door of which has been mentioned above.

[Sidenote: Vizeu, Cloister.]

Still more like the Marvilla capitals are those of the lower cloister of the cathedral of Vizeu. This, the most pleasing of all the renaissance cloisters in Portugal, has four arches on each side resting on fluted columns which though taller than usual in cloisters, have no entasis. The capitals are exactly like those at Santarem, but being of granite are much coarser, with roses instead of winged heads on the unmoulded abaci. At the angles two columns are placed together and a shallow strip is carried up above them all to the cornice. Somewhere in the lower cloister are the arms of Bishop Miguel da Silva, who is