Portuguese Architecture Part 18

Inside, the great piers have been much more highly adorned than without.

The vaulting shafts in the middle--which, formed of several small round mouldings, have run up quite plain from the ground, only interrupted by shields and their mantling on the frieze--are here broken and twisted.

On either side are niches with Gothic canopies, above which are interlacing leaves and branches. Beyond the niches are the window jambs, on which, next the opening, are shafts carved with naturalistic tree-stems, and between these and the niches two bands of ornament separated by thin plain shafts.

In each opening these bands are different. In some is Gothic foliage, in others semi-cla.s.sic carving like the string below or realistic like the cresting. In others are naturalistic branches, and in the opening over the chapel where Dom Manoel was to lie are cut the letters M in one hand and R in the other; Manoel Rey. (Fig. 59.)

Only the first foot or so of the vaulting has been built, and there is nothing now to show how the great octagon was to be roofed. Murphy[124]

gives his idea; the eight piers carried high up and capped with spires, huge Gothic windows between, and the whole covered by a vast pointed roof--presumably of wood--above the vault. Haupt with his Indian prepossessions suggests a dome surrounded by eight great domed pinnacles. Probably neither is right; certainly Murphy's great roof of wood would never have been made, and as for Haupt's dome nothing domed was built in Portugal till long after and that at first only on a small scale.[125] Besides, the well-developed Gothic ribs which are seen springing in each corner clearly show that some kind of Gothic vault was meant, and not a dome; and that the Portuguese could build wonderful vaults had been already shown by the chapter-house here and was soon to be shown by the transept at Belem. So in all probability the roof would have been a great Gothic vault of which the centre would rise very considerably above the sides; for there is no sign of stilting the ribs over the windows. The whole would have been covered with stone slabs, and would have been surrounded by eight groups of pinnacles, most of which would no doubt have been twisted.

Deeply though one must regret that this great chapel has been left unfinished and open to the sky, yet even in its incomplete state it is a treasure-house of beautiful ornament, and it is wonderful how well the more commonplace Gothic of Huguet's work agrees with and even enhances the richness of the detail which Fernandes drew from so many sources, late Gothic, early renaissance, and naturalistic, and which he knew so well how to combine into a beautiful whole.

The great Claustro Real, built by Dom Joo I., was peculiar among Portuguese cloisters in having, or at least being prepared for, large traceried windows. Probably these had remained blank, and for about a hundred years awaited the tracery which more than any part of the convent shows the skill of Matheus Fernandes.

There seems to be no exact record of when the work was done, but it must have been while additions were being made to the Imperfect chapels, though more fortunate than they, the work here was successfully finished.

The cloister has seven bays on each side, of which the five in the middle are nearly equal, having either five or six lights. In the eastern corners the openings have only three lights, in the south-western they have four, and in the north-western there stands the square two-bayed lavatory. (Fig. 60.)

In all the openings the shafts are alike. They have tall eight-sided and round bases, similar capitals and a moulded ring half-way up, while the whole shaft from ring to base and from ring to capital is carved with the utmost delicacy, with spirals, with diaper patterns, or with leaflike scales. Above the capitals the pointed openings are filled in with veils of tracery of three different patterns. In the central bay, and in the two next but one on either side of it, and so filling nine openings, is what at first seems to be a kind of reticulated tracery.

But on looking closer it is found to be built up of leaf-covered curves and of buds very like those forming the cresting in the Capellas Imperfeitas. In the corner bays--except where stands the lavatory--there is another form of reticulated tracery, where the larger curves are formed by branches, whose leaves make the cusps, while filling in the larger s.p.a.ces are budlike growths like those in the first-mentioned windows.

On either side of the central openings the tracery is more naturalistic than elsewhere; here the whole is formed of interlacing and intertwining branches, with leaves and large fruit-like poppy heads, and in the centre the Cross of the Order of Christ. But of all, the most successful is in the lavatory; there the two bays which form each side are high and narrow,

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 58.

BATALHA.

WINDOW OF PATEO.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 59.

BATALHA.

CAPELLAS IMPERFEITAS.

UPPER PART.

_From a photograph by E. Biel & Co., Oporto._]

with richly cusped pointed arches. Instead of cutting out the cusps and filling the upper part with tracery, Matheus Fernandes has with extraordinary skill thrown a crested transome across the opening and below it woven together a veil of exquisitely carved branches, which, resting on a central shaft, half hide and half reveal the large marble fountain within. (Fig. 61.)

At first, perhaps, accustomed to the ordinary forms of Gothic tracery, these windows seem strange, to some even unpleasing. Soon, however, when they have been studied more closely, when it has been recognised that the brilliant sunshine needs closer tracery and smaller openings than does the cooler North, and that indeed the aim of the designer is to keep out rather than to let in the direct rays of light, no one can be anything but thankful that Matheus Fernandes, instead of trying to adapt Gothic forms to new requirements, as was done by his predecessors in the church, boldly invented new forms for himself; forms which are entirely suited to the sun, the clear air and sky, and which with their creamy lace make a fitting background to the roses and flowers with which the cloister is now planted.

Now the question arises, from whence did Matheus Fernandes draw his inspiration? We have seen that windows with good Gothic tracery are almost unknown in Portugal, for even in the church here at Batalha the larger windows nearly all show a want of knowledge, and a wish to shut out the sun as much as possible, and besides there is really no resemblance between the tracery in the church and that in the cloister.

In the lowest floor of the Torre de So Vicente, begun by Dom Joo II.

and finished by Dom Manoel to defend the channel of the Tagus, the central hall is divided from a pa.s.sage by a thin wall whose upper part is pierced to form a perforated screen. The original plan for the tower is said to have been furnished by Garcia de Resende, whose house we have seen at Evora, and if this screen, which is built up of heart-shaped curves, is older than the cloister windows at Batalha, he may have suggested to Matheus Fernandes the tracery which has a more or less reticulated form, though on the other hand it may be later and have been suggested by them. Most probably, however, Matheus Fernandes thought out the tracery for himself. He would not have had far to go to see real reticulated panelling, for the church is covered with it; but an even more likely source of this reticulation might be found in the beautiful Moorish panelling which exists on such buildings as the Giralda or the tower at Rabat, and if we find Moors among the workmen at Thomar there may well have been some at Batalha as well. As for the naturalistic tracery, it is clearly only an improvement on such windows as those of the Pateo behind the church, and there is no need to go to Ahmedabad and find there pierced screens to which they have a certain resemblance.

However, whatever may be its origin, this tracery it is which makes the Claustro Real not only the most beautiful cloister in Portugal, but even, as that may not seem very great praise, one of the most beautiful cloisters in the world, and it must have been even more beautiful before a modern restoration crowned all the walls with a pierced Gothic parapet and a spiky cresting, whose angular form and sharp mouldings do not quite harmonise with the rounded and gentle curves of the tracery below.

After the suppression of the monastic orders in 1834, Batalha, which had already suffered terribly from the French invasion--for in 1810 during the retreat under Ma.s.sena two cloisters were burned and much furniture destroyed--was for a time left to decay. However, in 1840 the Cortes decreed an annual expenditure of two contos of reis,[126] or about 450 to keep the buildings in repair and to restore such parts as were damaged.

The first director was Senhor Luis d'Albuquerque, and he and his successors have been singularly successful in their efforts, and have carried out a restoration with which little fault can be found, except that they have been too lavish in building pierced parapets, and in filling the windows of the church with wooden fretwork and with hideous green, red and blue gla.s.s.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 60.

BATALHA.

CLOISTER.

_From a photograph by E. Biel & Co., Oporto._]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 61.

BATALHA.

LAVATORY IN CLAUSTRO REAL.]

CHAPTER XIII

BELEM

Belem or Bethlehem lies close to the sh.o.r.e, after the broad estuary of the Tagus has again grown narrow, about four miles from the centre of Lisbon, and may best be reached by one of the excellent electric cars which now so well connect together the different parts of the town and its wide-spreading suburbs.

Situated where the river mouth is at its narrowest, it is natural that it was chosen as the site of one of the forts built to defend the capital. Here, then, on a sandbank washed once by every high tide, but now joined to the mainland by so unromantic a feature as the gasworks, a tower begun by Dom Joo II., and designed, it is said, by Garcia de Resende, was finished by Dom Manoel about 1520 and dedicated to So Vicente, the patron of Lisbon.[127]

The tower is not of very great size, perhaps some forty feet square by about one hundred high. It stands free on three sides, but on the south towards the water it is protected by a great projecting bastion, which, rather wider than the tower, ends at the water edge in a polygon.

The tower contains several stories of one room each, none of which are in themselves in any way remarkable except the lowest, in which is the perforated screen mentioned in the last chapter. In the second story the south window opens on to a long balcony running the whole breadth of the tower, and the other windows on to smaller balconies. The third story is finished with a fortified parapet resting on great corbels. The last and fourth, smaller than those below, is fortified with pointed merlons, and with a round corbelled turret at each corner.

On entering, it is found that the bastion contains a sort of cloister with a flat paved roof on to which opens the door of the tower. Under the cloister are horrid damp dungeons, last used by Dom Miguel, who during his usurpation imprisoned in them such of his liberal opponents as he could catch. The whole bastion is fortified with great merlons, rising above a rope moulding, each, like those on the tower, bearing a shield carved with the Cross of the Order of Christ, and by round turrets corbelled out at the corners. These, like all the turrets, are capped with melon-shaped stone roofs, and curious finials. Similar turrets jut out from two corners of the ground floor.

The parapet also of the cloister is interesting. It is divided into squares, in each of which a quatrefoil encloses a cross of the Order of Christ. At intervals down the sides are spiral pinnacles, at the corners columns bearing spheres, and at the south end a tall niche, elaborately carved, under whose strange canopy stand a Virgin and Child.

The most interesting features of the tower are the balconies. That on the south side, borne on huge corbels, has in front an arcade of seven round arches, resting on round shafts with typical Manoelino caps. A continuous sloping stone roof covers the whole, enriched at the bottom by a rope moulding, and marked with curious nicks at the top. The parapet is Gothic and very thin. The other balconies are the same, a pointed tentlike roof ending in a k.n.o.b, a parapet whose circles enclose crosses of the order, but with only two arches in front.

The third story is lit by two light windows on three sides, and on the south side by two round-headed windows, between which is cut a huge royal coat-of-arms crowned.

Altogether the building is most picturesque, the balconies are charming, and the round turrets and the battlements give it a look of strength and at the same time add greatly to its appearance. The general outline, however, is not altogether pleasing owing to the setting back of the top story. (Fig. 62.)

The detail, however, is most interesting. It is throughout Manoelino, and that too with hardly an admixture of Gothic. There is no naturalism, and hardly any suggestion of the renaissance, and as befits a fort it is without any of the exuberance so common to buildings of this time.

Now here again, as at Thomar and Batalha, Haupt has seen a result of the intercourse with India; both in the balconies and in the turret roofs[128] he sees a likeness to a temple in Gujerat; and it must be admitted that in the example he gives the balconies and roofs are not at all unlike those at Belem. It might further be urged that Garcia de Resende who designed the tower, if he was never in India himself, formed part of Dom Manoel's great emba.s.sy to Rome in 1514, when the wonders of the East were displayed before the Pope, that he might easily be familiar with Indian carvings or paintings, and that finally there are no such balconies elsewhere in Portugal. All that may be true, and yet in his own town of Evora there are still many pavilions more like the smaller balconies than are those in India, and it surely did not need very great originality to put such a pavilion on corbels and so give the tower its most distinctive feature. As for the turrets, in Spain there are many, at Medina del Campo or at Coca, which are corbelled out in much the same way, though their roofs are different, and like though the melon-shaped dome of the turrets may be to some in Gujerat, they are more like those at Bacalhoa, and surely some proof of connection between Belem and Gujerat, better than mere likeness, is wanted before the Indian theory can be accepted. That the son of an Indian viceroy should roof his turrets at Bacalhoa with Indian domes might seem natural; but the turrets were certainly built before he bought the Quinta in 1528, and neither they nor the house shows any other trace of Indian influence.

The night of July 7, 1497, the last Vasco da Gama and his captains were to spend on sh.o.r.e before starting on the momentous voyage which ended at Calicut, was pa.s.sed by them in prayer, in a small chapel built by Prince Henry the Navigator for the use of sailors, and dedicated to Nossa Senhora do Restello.