Portuguese Architecture Part 10

Not unlike the vaulting at Villar is that of the Matriz or mother church of Alvito, a small town in the Alemtejo, nor can it be very much later in date. Outside it is only remarkable for its west door, an interesting example of an attempt to use the details of the early French renaissance, without understanding how to do so--as in the pediment all the entablature except the architrave has been left out--and for the short twisted pinnacles which somehow give to it, as to many other buildings in the Alemtejo, so Oriental a look, and which are seen again at Belem. Inside, the aisles are divided from the nave by round chamfered arches springing from rather short octagonal piers, which have picturesque octagonal capitals and a moulded band half-way up. Only is the easternmost bay, opening to large transeptal chapels, pointed and moulded. The vaulting springs from corbels, and although the ribs are but simply chamfered they are well developed. Curiously, though the central is so much higher than the side aisles, there is no clerestory, nor any signs of there ever having been one, while the whole wall surface is entirely covered with those beautiful tiles which came to be so much used during the seventeenth century.

In the year 1415 her five sons had sailed straight from the deathbed of Queen Philippa to the coast of Morocco and had there captured the town of Ceuta, a town which remained in the hands of the Portuguese till after their ill-fated union with Spain; for in 1668 it was ceded to Spain in return for an acknowledgment of Portuguese independence, thus won after twenty-seven years' more or less continuous fighting. This was the first time any attempt had been made to carry the Portuguese arms across the Straits, and to attack their old enemies the Moors in their own land, where some hundred and seventy years later King Joo's descendant, Dom Sebastio, was to lose his life and his country's freedom.

[Sidenote: Tomb in Graca, Santarem.]

The first governor of Ceuta was Dom Pedro de Menezes, count of Viana.

There he died in 1437, after having for twenty-two years bravely defended and governed the city--then, as is inscribed on his tomb, the only place in Africa possessed by Christians. This tomb, which was made at the command of his daughter Dona Leonor, stands in the church of the Graca at Santarem, a church which had been founded by his grandfather the count of Ourem in 1376 for canons regular of St. Augustine. Inside the church itself is not very remarkable,[86] having a nave and aisles with transepts and three vaulted chapels to the east, built very much in the same style as is the church at Leca do Balio, except that it has a fine west front, to be mentioned later, that the roof of the nave was knocked down by the Devil in 1548 in anger at the extreme piety of Frey Martinho de Santarem, one of the canons, and that many famous people, including Pedro Alvares Cabral, the discoverer of Brazil, are therein buried.

In general outline the tomb of the count of Viana is not unlike that of his master Dom Joo, but it is much more highly decorated. On eight crouching lions rests a large altar-tomb. It has a well-moulded and carved base and an elaborately carved cornice, rich with deeply undercut foliage, while on the top lie Pedro de Menezes and his wife Dona Beatriz Coutinho, with elaborately carved canopies at their heads, and pedestals covered with figures and foliage at their feet. Beneath the cornice on each of the longer sides is cut in Gothic letters a long inscription telling of Dom Pedro's life, and lower down and on all four sides there is in the middle a shield, now much damaged, with the Menezes arms. On each side of these shields are carved spreading branches, knotted round a circle in the centre in which is cut the word 'Aleo.' Once, when playing with King Joo at a game in which some kind of club or mallet was used, the news came that the Moors were collecting in great numbers to attack Ceuta. The king, turning to Dom Pedro, asked him what reinforcements he would need to withstand the attack; the governor answered: 'This "Aleo," or club, will be enough,' and in fact, returning at once to his command, he was able without further help to drive back the enemy. So this word has been carved on his tomb to recall how well he did his duty.[87] (Fig. 39.)

[Sidenote: Tomb in So Joo de Alporo.]

Not far from the Graca church is that of So Joo de Alporo, of which something has already been said, and in it now stands the tomb of another Menezes, who a generation later also died in Africa, fighting to save the life of his king, Dom Affonso V., grandson of King Joo.

Notwithstanding the ill-success of the expedition of his father, Dom Duarte, to Tangier, Dom Affonso, after having got rid of his uncle the duke of Coimbra, who had governed the country during his minority, and who fell in battle defending himself against the charge of treason, led several expeditions to Morocco, taking first Alcazar es Seghir or Alcacer Seguer, and later Tangier and Arzilla, thereby uselessly exhausting the strength of the people, and hindering the spread of maritime exploration which Dom Henrique had done so much to extend.

This Dom Duarte de Menezes, third count of Viana, was, as an inscription tells, first governor of Alcacer Seguer, which with five hundred soldiers he successfully defended against a hundred thousand Moors, dying at last in the mountains of Bonacofu in defence of his king in 1464.[88]

The monument was built by his widow, Dona Isabel de Castro, but so terribly had Dom Duarte been cut to pieces by the Moors, that only one finger could be found to be buried there.[89] Though much more elaborate, the tomb is not altogether unlike those of the royal princes at Batalha. The count lies, armed, with a sword drawn in his right hand, on an altar-tomb on whose front, between richly traceried panels, are carved an inscription above, upheld by small figures, and below, in the middle a flaming cresset, probably a memorial of his watchfulness in Africa, and on each side a shield.

Surmounting the altar-tomb is a deeply moulded ogee arch subdivided into two hanging arches which spring from a pendant in the middle, while the s.p.a.ce between these sub-arches and the ogee above is filled with a canopied carving of the Crucifixion. At about the level of the pendant the open s.p.a.ce is crossed by a cusped segmental arch supporting elaborate flowing tracery. The outer sides of the ogee, which ends in a large finial, are enriched with large vine-leaf crockets. On either side of the arch is a square pier, moulded at the angles, and with each face covered with elaborate tracery. Each pier, which ends in a square crocketed and gabled pinnacle, has half-way

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 39.

SANTAREM.

CHURCH OF THE GRAcA.

TOMB OF D. PEDRO DE MENEZES.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 40.

SANTAREM.

TOMB OF DOM DUARTE DE MENEZES IN S. JOO DE ALPORO.]

up a small figure standing on an octagonal corbel under an elaborate canopy. The whole at the top is finished with a cornice running straight across from pier to pier, and crested with interlacing and cusped semicircles, while the flat field below the cornice and above the outer moulding of the great arch is covered with flaming cressets. (Fig. 40.)

This is perhaps one of the finest of the tombs of the fifteenth century, and like those at Alcobaca is made of that very fine limestone which is found in more than one place in Portugal.

[Sidenote: At Abrantes.]

Farther up the Tagus at Abrantes, in the church of Santa Maria do Castello, are some more tombs of the same date, more than one of which is an almost exact copy of the princes' tombs at Batalha, though there is one whose arch is fringed with curious reversed cusping, almost Moorish in appearance.

[Sidenote: Cloister at Thomar.]

Before turning to the many churches built towards the end of the fifteenth century, one of the cloisters of the great convent at Thomar must be mentioned. It is that called 'do Cemiterio,' and was built by Prince Henry the Navigator, duke of Vizeu, during his grandmastership of the Order of Christ about the year 1440. Unlike those at Alcobaca or at Lisbon, which were derived from a Cistercian plan, and were always intended to be vaulted, this small cloister followed the plan, handed down from romanesque times, where on each side there is a continuous arcade resting on coupled shafts. Such cloisters, differing only from the romanesque in having pointed arches and capitals carved with fourteenth-century foliage, may still be seen at Santo Thyrso and at So Domingos, Guimares, in the north. Here at Thomar the only difference is that the arches are very much wider, there being but five on each side, and that the bell-shaped capitals are covered with finely carved conventional vine-leaves arranged in two rows round the bells. As in the older cloisters one long abacus unites the two capitals, but the arches are different, each being moulded as one deep arch instead of two similar arches set side by side.

CHAPTER VI

LATER GOTHIC

During the last ten or fifteen years of the fifteenth century there was great activity in building throughout almost the whole country, but it now becomes almost impossible to take the different buildings in chronological order, because at this time so many different schools began to struggle for supremacy. There was first the Gothic school which, though increasing in elaboration of detail, went on in some places almost uninfluenced by any breath of the renaissance, as for instance in the porch and chancel of Braga Cathedral, not built till about 1532. Elsewhere this Gothic was affected partly by Spanish and partly by Moorish influence, and gradually grew into that most curious and characteristic of styles, commonly called Manoelino, from Dom Manoel under whom Portugal reached the summit of its prosperity. In other places, again, Gothic forms and renaissance details came gradually to be used together, as at Belem.

To take then first those buildings in which Gothic detail was but little influenced by the approaching renaissance.

[Sidenote: Graca, Santarem.]

One of the earliest of these is the west front, added towards the end of the fifteenth century to that Augustinian church of the Graca at Santarem whose roof the Devil knocked down in 1548. Here the ends of the side aisles are, now at any rate, quite plain, but in the centre there is a very elaborate doorway with a large rose-window above. It is easy to see that this doorway has not been uninfluenced by Batalha. From well-moulded jambs, each of which has four shafts, there springs a large pointed arch, richly fringed with cusping on its inner side. Two of its many mouldings are enriched with smaller cuspings, and one, the outermost, with a line of wavy tracery, while the whole ends in a crocketed ogee. Above the arch is a strip of shallow panelling, enclosed, as is the whole doorway, in a square moulded frame. May it not be that this square frame is due to the almost universal Moorish habit of setting an archway in a square frame, as may be seen at Cordoba and in the palace windows at Cintra? The rest of the gable is perfectly plain but for the round window, filled with elaborate spiral flowing tracery. Here, though the details are more French than national, there is a good example of the excellent result so often reached by later Portuguese--and Spanish--builders, who concentrated all their elaborate ornament on one part of the building while leaving the rest absolutely plain--often as here plastered and whitewashed.

[Sidenote: So Joo Baptista, Thomar.]

Not long after this front was built, Dom Manoel in 1494 began a new parish church at Thomar, that of So Joo Baptista. The plan of this church is that which has already become so familiar: a nave and aisles with wooden roof and vaulted chancel and chapels to the east, with here, the addition of a tower and spire to the north of the west front. The inside calls for little notice: the arches are pointed, and the capitals carved with not very good foliage, but the west front is far more interesting. As at the Graca it is plastered and whitewashed, but ends not in a gable but in a straight line of cresting like Batalha, though here there is no flat terrace behind, but a sloping tile roof. At the bottom is a large ogee doorway whose tympanum is pierced with tracery and whose mouldings are covered with most beautiful and deeply undercut foliage. The outside of the arch is crocketed, and ends in a tall finial thrust through the horizontal and crested moulding which, as at the Graca, sets the whole in a square frame. There are also doorways in the same style half-way along the north and south sides of the church. The only other openings on the west front are a plain untraceried circle above the door, and a simple ogee-headed window at the end of each aisle.

The tower, which is not whitewashed, rises as a plain unadorned square to a little above the aisle roof, then turns to an octagon with, at the top, a plain belfry window on each face. Above these runs a corbelled gallery within which springs an octagonal spire cut into three by two bands of ornament, and ending in a large armillary sphere, that emblem of all the discoveries made during his reign, which Dom Manoel put on to every building with which he had anything to do.

Inside the chapels are as usual overloaded with huge reredoses of heavily carved and gilt wood, but the original pulpit still survives, a most beautiful example of the finest late Gothic carving. It consists of four sides of an octagon, and stands on ribs which curve outwards from a central shaft. Round the bottom runs a band of foliage most marvellously undercut, above this are panels separated the one from the other by slender pinnacles, and the whole ends in a cornice even more delicately carved than is the base. At the top of each panel is some intricate tabernacle work, below which there is on one the Cross of the Order of Christ, on another the royal arms, with a coronet above which stands out quite clear of the panel, and on a third there has been the armillary sphere, now unfortunately quite broken off. But even more interesting than this pulpit itself is the comparison between its details and those of the nave or Coro added about the same time to the Templar church on the hill behind. Here all is purely Gothic, there there is a mixture of Gothic and renaissance details, and towards the west front an exuberance of carving which cannot be called either Gothic or anything else, so strange and unusual is it.

[Sidenote: Villa do Conde.]

Another church of almost exactly the same date is that of So Joo Baptista, the Matriz of Villa do Conde. The plan shows a nave and aisles of five bays, large transeptal chapels, and an apsidal chancel projecting beyond the two square chapels by which it is flanked. As usual the nave and aisles have a wooden roof, only the chancel and chapels being vaulted. There is also a later tower at the west end of the north aisle, and a choir gallery across the west end of the church.

Throughout the original windows are very narrow and round-headed, and there is in the north-western bay a pointed door, differing only from those of about a hundred years earlier in having twisted shafts. One curious feature is the parapet of the central aisle, which is like a row of small cla.s.sical pedestals, each bearing a stumpy obelisk. By far the finest feature of the outside is the great west door. On each side are cl.u.s.ters of square pinnacles ending in square crocketed spirelets, and running up to a horizontal moulding which, as so often, gives the whole design a rectangular form. Within comes the doorway itself; a large trefoiled arch of many mouldings of which the outermost, richly crocketed, turns up as an ogee, to pierce the horizontal line above with its finial. Every moulding is filled with foliage, most elaborately and finely cut, considering that it is worked in granite. Across the trefoil at its springing there runs a horizontal moulding resting on the flat elliptical arch of the door itself. On the tympanum is a figure of St. John under a very elaborate canopy with, on his right, a queer carving of a naked man, and on his left a dragon. The s.p.a.ce between the arch and the top moulding is filled with intricate but shallow panelling, among which, between two armillary spheres, are set, on the right, a blank shield crowned--probably prepared for the royal arms--and on the left the town arms--a galley with all sails set. Lastly, as a cresting to the horizontal moulding, there is a row of urnlike objects, the only renaissance features about the whole door. (Fig. 41.)

[Ill.u.s.tration: SO JOO BAPTISTA VILLA DO CONDE

S^TA MARIA DOS ANJOS CAMINHA]

Inside, all the piers are octagonal with a slender shaft at each angle; these shafts alone having small capitals, while their bases stand on, and interpenetrate with, the base of the whole pier. All the arches are round--as are those leading to the chancel and transept chapels--and are moulded exactly as are the piers. All the vaults have a network of well-moulded ribs.

The tower has been added some fifty years later and is very picturesque. It is of four stories: of these the lowest has rusticated masonry; the second, on its western face, a square-headed window opening beneath a small curly and broken pediment on to a balcony with very fine bal.u.s.ters all upheld by three large corbels. The third story has only a clock, and the fourth two plain round-headed belfry windows on each face. The whole--above a shallow cornice which is no bigger than the mouldings dividing the different stories--ends in a low stone dome, with a bell gable in front, square below, and arched above, holding two bells.

[Sidenote: Azurara.]

Scarcely a mile away, across the river Ave, lies Azurara, which was made a separate parish in 1457 and whose church was built by Dom Manoel in 1498.

In plan it is almost exactly the same as Villa do Conde, except that there are no transept chapels nor any flanking the chancel. Outside almost the only difference lies in the parapet which is of the usual shape with regular merlons; and in the west door which is an interesting example of the change to the early renaissance. The door itself is round-headed, and has Gothic mouldings separated by a broad band covered with shallow renaissance carving. On each side are twisted shafts which run up some way above the door to a sort of horizontal entablature, whose frieze is well carved, and which is cut into by a curious ogee moulding springing from the door arch. Above this entablature the shafts are carried up square for some way, and end in Gothic pinnacles. Between them is a niche surmounted by a large half-Gothic canopy and united to the side shafts by a broken and twisted treelike moulding. What adds to the strangeness of this door is that the blank s.p.a.ces are plastered and whitewashed, while all the rest of the church is of grey granite. Higher up there is a round window--heavily moulded--and the whole gable ends in a queer little round pediment set between two armillary spheres.

Inside the piers are eight-sided with octagonal bases and caps, and with a band of ornament half-way up the shaft. The arches are simply chamfered but are each crossed by three carved voussoirs.

The tower is exactly like that at Villa do Conde except that the bottom story is not rusticated, and that instead of a dome there is an octagonal spire covered with yellow and white tiles.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 41.

VILLA DO CONDE. SO JOO BAPTISTA.]

[Sidenote: Caminha.]