Portuguese Architecture Part 27

It is divided into three stories, each about ten feet high, with a half-story below resting on a plain plinth.

Each story is divided into large square panels by pilasters or columns set pretty close together, the topmost story having candelabrum shafts, the one below it Corinthian columns, the lowest Doric pilasters, and the half-story below pedestals for these pilasters. Entablatures with ornamental friezes divide each story, while at the top the centre is raised to admit of an arch, an arrangement probably copied from Joo de Ruo's altar-piece.

In the half-story at the bottom are half-figures of the twelve Apostles, four under each of the square panels at the sides, and one between each pair of pilasters.

Above is represented, on the left the Annunciation, on the right the Nativity; in the centre, now hidden by a hideous wooden erection, there is a beautiful little tabernacle between two angels. Between the pilasters, as between the columns above, stand large figures of prophets.

In the next story the scenes are, on the left the Magi, on the right the Presentation, and in the centre the a.s.sumption of the Virgin.

The whole of the top is taken up with the Story of the Crucifixion, our Lord bearing the Cross on the left, the Crucifixion under the arch, and the Deposition on the right.

Although the whole is infinitely superior in design to anything by Master Nicolas, it must be admitted that the sculpture is very inferior to his, and also to Joo de Ruo's. The best are the Crucifixion scenes, where the grouping is better and the action freer, but everywhere the faces are rather expressionless and the figures stiff.

As everything is painted, white for the background and an ugly yellow for the figures and detail, it is not possible to see whether stone or terra cotta is the material; if terra cotta the sculptor may have been a pupil of Filipe Eduard, who in the time of Dom Manoel wrought the Last Supper in terra cotta, fragments of which still survive at Coimbra.

CHAPTER XVII

THE LATER RENAISSANCE AND THE SPANISH USURPATION

This earlier style did not, however, last very long. Even before the death of Dom Joo more strictly cla.s.sical forms began to come in from Italy, brought by some of the many pupils who had been sent to study there. Once when staying at Almeirim the king had been much interested in a model of the Colosseum brought to him by Goncalo Bayo, whom he charged to reproduce some of the monuments he had seen in Rome.

Whether he did reproduce them or not is unknown, but in the Claustro dos Filippes at Thomar this new and thoroughly Italian style is seen fully developed.

[Sidenote: Thomar, Claustro dos Filippes.]

Diogo de Torralva had been nominated to direct the works in Thomar in 1554, but did nothing to this cloister till 1557 after Dom Joo's death, when his widow, Dona Catharina, regent for her grandson, Dom Sebastio, ordered him to pull down what was already built, as it was unsafe, and to build another of the same size about one hundred and fifteen feet square, but making the lower story rather higher.

The work must have been carried out quickly, since on the vault of the upper cloister there is the date 1562--a date which shows that the whole must have been practically finished some eighteen years before Philip of Spain secured the throne of Portugal, and that therefore the cloister should rather be called after Dona Catharina, who ordered it, than after the 'Reis Intrusos,' whose only connection with Thomar is that the first was there elected king.

Between each of the three large arches which form a side of the lower cloister stand two Roman Doric columns of considerable size. They are placed some distance apart leaving room between them for an opening, while another window-like opening occurs above the moulding from which the arches

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 91.

GUARDA.

REREDOS IN CATHEDRAL.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 92.

THOMAR.

CLAUSTRO DOS FILIPPES.]

spring. In the four corners the s.p.a.ce between the columns, as well as the entablature, is set diagonally, leaving room in one instance for a circular stair. The cornice is enriched with dentils and the frieze with raised squares. On the entablature more columns of about the same height as those below, but with Ionic capitals, stand in pairs. Stairs lead up in each corner to the flat roof, above which they rise in a short dome-bearing drum. In this upper cloister the arches are much narrower, springing from square Ionic pilasters, two on each side, set one behind the other, and leaving an open s.p.a.ce beyond so that the whole takes the form of a Venetian window. The small upper window between the columns is round instead of square, and the cornice is carried on large corbels. In front of all the openings is a bal.u.s.trade. Two windows look south down the hillside over rich orchards and gardens, while immediately below them a water channel, the end of a great aqueduct built under Philip I.

of Portugal, II. of Spain, by the Italian Filippo Terzi,[160] cools the air, and, overflowing, clothes the arches with maidenhair fern. Another window opening on to the Claustro de Sta. Barbara gives a very good view of the curious west front of the church. There is not and there probably never was any parapet to the flat paved roof, from where one can look down on the surrounding cloisters, and on the paved terrace before the church door where Philip was elected king in April 1580. (Fig. 92.)

This cloister, the first example in Portugal of the matured Italian renaissance, is also, with the exception of the church of So Vicente de Fora at Lisbon, the most successful, for all is well proportioned, and shows that Diogo de Torralva really understood cla.s.sic detail and how to use it. He was much less successful in the chancel of Belem, while about the cathedral which he built at Miranda de Douro it is difficult to find out anything, so remote and inaccessible is it, except that it stands magnificently on a high rock above the river.[161]

The reigns of Dom Sebastio and of his grand-uncle, the Cardinal-King, were noted for no great activity in building. Only at Evora, where he so long filled the position of archbishop before succeeding to the throne, was the cardinal able to do much. The most important architectural event in Dom Sebastio's reign was the coming of Filippo Terzi from Italy to build So Roque, the church of the Jesuits in Lisbon, and the consequent school of architects, the Alvares, Tinouco, Turianno, and others who were so active during the reign of Philip.

But before speaking of the work of this school some of Cardinal Henry's buildings at Evora must be mentioned, and then the story told of how Philip succeeded in uniting the whole Peninsula under his rule.

[Sidenote: Evora, Graca.]

A little to the south of the cathedral of Evora, and a little lower down the hill, stands the Graca or church of the canons of St. Augustine.

Begun during the reign of Dom Joo III., the nave and chancel, in which there is a fine tomb, have many details which recall the Conceico at Thomar, such as windows set in sham perspective. But they were long in building, and the now broken down barrel vault and the curious porch were not added till the reign of Dom Sebastio, while the monastic buildings were finished about the same time.

This porch is most extraordinary. Below, there are in front four well-proportioned and well-designed Doric columns; beyond them and next the outer columns are large projecting pilasters forming b.u.t.tresses, not unlike the b.u.t.tresses in some of the earlier cloisters. Above the entablature, which runs round these b.u.t.tresses, there stand on the two central columns two tall Ionic semi-columns, surmounted by an entablature and pointed pediment, and enclosing a large window set back in sham perspective. On either side large solid square panels are filled by huge rosettes several feet across, and above them half-pediments filled with shields reach up to the central pediment but at a lower level. Above these pediments another raking moulding runs up supported on square blocks, while on the top of the upper b.u.t.tresses there sit figures of giant boys with globes on their backs; winged figures also kneel on the central pediment.

It will be seen that this is one of the most extraordinary erections in the world. Though built of granite some of the detail is quite fine, and the lower columns are well proportioned; but the upper part is ridiculously heavy and out of keeping with the rest, and inconceivably ill-designed. The different parts also are ill put together and look as if they had belonged to distinct buildings designed on a totally different scale.

[Sidenote: Evora University.]

Not much need be said of the Jesuit University founded at Evora by the Cardinal in 1559 and suppressed by the Marques de Pombal. Now partly a school and partly an orphanage, the great hall for conferring degrees is in ruins, but the courtyard with its two ranges of galleries still stands. The court is very large, and the galleries have round arches and white marble columns, but is somehow wanting in interest. The church too is very poor, though the private chapel with barrel vault and white marble dome is better, yet the whole building shows, like the Graca porch, that cla.s.sic architecture was not yet fully understood, for Diogo de Torralva had not yet finished his cloister at Thomar, nor had Terzi begun to work in Lisbon.

When Dom Joo III. died in 1557 he was succeeded by his grandson Sebastio, who was then only three years old. At first his grandmother, Dona Catharina, was regent, but she was thoroughly Spanish, and so unpopular. For five years she withstood the intrigues of her brother-in-law, Cardinal Henry, but at last in 1562 retired to Spain in disgust. The Cardinal then became regent, but the country was really governed by two brothers, of whom the elder, Luis Goncalves da Camara, a Jesuit, was confessor to the young king.

Between them Dom Sebastio grew up a dreamy bigot whose one ambition was to lead a crusade against the Moors--an ambition in which popular rumour said he was encouraged by the Jesuits at the instigation of his cousin, Philip of Spain, who would profit so much by his death.

Since the wealth of the Indies had begun to fill the royal treasury, the Cortes had not been summoned, so there was no one able to oppose his will, when at last an expedition sailed in 1578.

At this time the country had been nearly drained of men by India and Brazil, so a large part of the army consisted of mercenaries; peculation too had emptied the treasury, and there was great difficulty in finding money to pay the troops.

Yet the expedition started, and landing first at Tangier afterwards moved on to Azila, which Mulay Ahmed, a pretender to the Moorish umbrella, had handed over.

On July 29th, Dom Sebastio rashly started to march inland from Azila.

The army suffered terribly from heat and thirst, and was quite worn out before it met the reigning amir, Abd-el-Melik, at Alcacer-Quebir, or El-Kasar-el-Kebir, 'the great castle,' on the 3rd of August.

Next morning the battle began, and though Abd-el-Melik died almost at once, the Moors, surrounding the small Christian army, were soon victorious. Nine thousand were killed, and of the rest all were taken prisoners except fifty. Both the Pretender and Dom Sebastio fell, and with his death and the destruction of his army the greatness of Portugal disappeared.

For two years, till 1580, his feeble old grand-uncle the Cardinal Henry sat on the throne, but when he died without nominating an heir none of Dom Manoel's descendants were strong enough to oppose Philip II. of Spain. Philip was indeed a grandson of Dom Manoel through his mother Isabel, but the d.u.c.h.ess of Braganza, daughter of Dom Duarte, duke of Guimares, Cardinal Henry's youngest brother, had really a better claim.

But the spirit of the nation was changed, she dared not press her claims, and few supported the prior of Crato, whose right was at least as good as had been that of Dom Joo I., and so Philip was elected at Thomar in April 1580.

Besides losing her independence Portugal lost her trade, for Holland and England both now regarded her as part of their great enemy, Spain, and so harried her ports and captured her treasure ships. Brazil was nearly lost to the Dutch, who also succeeded in expelling the Portuguese from Ceylon and from the islands of the East Indies, so that when the sixty years' captivity was over and the Spaniards expelled, Portugal found it impossible to recover the place she had lost.

It is then no wonder that almost before the end of the century money for building began to fail, and that some of the churches begun then were never finished; and yet for about the first twenty or thirty years of the Spanish occupation building went on actively, especially in Lisbon and at Coimbra, where many churches were planned by Filippo Terzi, or by the two Alvares and others. Filippo Terzi seems first to have been employed at Lisbon by the Jesuits in building their church of So Roque, begun about 1570.[162]

[Sidenote: Lisbon, So Roque.]

Outside the church is as plain as possible; the front is divided into three by single Doric pilasters set one on each side of the main door and two at each corner. Similar pilasters stand on these, separated from them only by a shallow cornice. The main cornice is larger, but the pediment is perfectly plain. Three windows, one with a pointed and two with round pediments, occupy the s.p.a.ces left between the upper pilasters. The inside is richer; the wooden ceiling is painted, the shallow chancel and the side chapels vaulted with barrel vaults, of which those in the chapels are enriched with elaborate strapwork. Above the chapels are square-headed windows, and then a corbelled cornice.

Even this is plain, and it owes most of its richness to the paintings and to the beautiful tiles which cover part of the walls.[163]

The three other great churches which were probably also designed by Terzi are Santo Anto, Sta. Maria do Desterro, and So Vicente de Fora.