Portuguese Architecture Part 24

Nearer Coimbra there are some fine monuments to the Silveira family at Goes not far from Louz, 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 Cla.s.sic. 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 b.u.t.tresses are still Gothic in form, but the west door is of the fully developed renaissance. The opening is

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 81.

PALACE, CINTRA.

DOOR BY SANSOVINO.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 82.

W. DOOR, CAMINHA.]

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 Joo 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 Joo 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 JOO DE CASTILHO AND THE EARLIER CLa.s.sIC

To Dom Manoel, who died in 1521, had succeeded his son Dom Joo 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 Joo 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 Joo 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 pa.s.sage, 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 Joo 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 Joo 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 cla.s.sic. 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 bal.u.s.ter; 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 Joo de Castilho was in 1518 beginning to accept renaissance forms though still making them a.s.sume a Manoelino dress.

[Sidenote: Batalha, Santa Cruz.]

But in the door of the little parish church of Sta. Cruz at Batalha, also built by Joo 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 Joo III. was more devoted to the Church than

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 83.

ALCOBAcA.

SACRISTY DOOR.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 84.

W. DOOR, STA. CRUZ.

BATALHA.]

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 Joo 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 Joo had to buy several houses and gardens, which together formed a suburb called So Martinho, and some of which were the property of Joo de Castilho, who received for them 463$000 or about 100.[150]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLAN OF THOMAR]

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.