Portuguese Architecture Part 9

The eight piers of the lantern are made up of a great number of shafts with a moulded angle between each. The capitals are covered with two tiers of conventional vine-leaves and have octagonal, not as in the church square abaci, while the arches are highly stilted and are enriched with most elaborate cusping, each cusp ending in a square vine-leaf. (Fig. 35.)

Such then are the main features of the church, the design of which, according to most writers, was brought straight from England by the English queen, an opinion which no one who knows English contemporary buildings can hold for a moment.

First, to take the entirely native features. The plan is only an elaboration of that of many already existing churches. The south transept door is a copy of a door at Santarem. The heavy transverse arches and the curious way the diagonal vaulting ribs are left to take care of themselves have been seen no further away than at Alcobaca; the flat-paved terraced roofs, whose origin the Visconde di Condeixa in his monograph on the convent, sought even as far off as in Cyprus, existed already at Evora and elsewhere.

Secondly, from France might have come the general design of the west door, and the great height of the nave, though the proportion between the aisle arcade and the clerestory, and the entire absence of any kind of triforium, is not at all French.

Thirdly, several details, as has been seen, appear to be more English than anything else, but they are none of them very important; the ridge ribs in the nave, the Welsh groining of the chancel vault, the general look of the pinnacles, a few pieces of stone panelling on b.u.t.tresses or door, a small part of a few of the windows, the moulding of the chapter-house door, the leaves on the capitals of the Capella do Fundador, and the shape of the vine-leaves at the ends of the cuspings of the arches. From a distance the appearance of the church is certainly more English than anything else, but that is due chiefly to the flat roof--a thoroughly Portuguese feature--and to the upstanding pinnacles, which suggest a long perpendicular building such as one of the college chapels at Oxford.

Lastly, if the open-work spire is a real copy of that destroyed in 1755, and if there ever was another like it on the Capella do Fundador,[80] they suggest German influence, although the earliest Spanish examples of such German work were not begun at Burgos till 1442, by which time the church here must have been nearly if not quite finished.

It is then not difficult to a.s.sign a great many details, with perhaps a certain amount of truth, to the influence of several foreign countries, yet as a whole the church is unlike any building existing in any of these countries or even in Spain, and it remains as difficult, or indeed as impossible, to discover whence these characteristics came. So far there had been scarcely any development of window tracery to lead up to the elaborate and curious examples which are found here; still less had any such constructive skill been shown in former buildings as to make so great a vault as that of the chapter-house at all likely, for such a vault is to be found perhaps nowhere else.

Probably the plan of the church, and perhaps the eastern chapel and lower part of the transept, are the work of Affonso Domingues, and all the peculiarities, the strange windows, the cusped arches, the English-looking pinnacles, as well as all the constructive skill, are due to Huguet his successor, who may perhaps have travelled in France and England, and had come back to Portugal with increased knowledge of how to build, but with a rather confused idea of the ornamental detail he had seen abroad.

When Dom Joo died in 1433 his eldest son, Dom Duarte or Edward, determined to build for himself a more splendid tomb-house than his father's, and so was begun the great octagon to the east.

Unfortunately Dom Duarte's reign was short; he died in 1438, partly it is said of distress at the ill success of his expedition to Morocco and at the captivity there of his youngest brother, so that he had no time to finish his chapel, and his son Affonso V., the African, was too much engaged in campaigning against the Moors to be able to give either money or attention to his father's work; and it was still quite unfinished when Dom Manoel came to the throne in 1495, and though he did much towards carrying on the work it was unfinished when he died in 1521 and so remains to the present day. It is in designing this chapel that Huguet showed his greatest originality and constructive daring: a few feet behind the central apse he planned a great octagon about seventy-two feet in diameter, surrounded by seven apsidal chapels, one on each side except that next the church, while between these chapels are small low chambers where were to be the tombs themselves. There is nothing to show how this chapel was to be united to the church, as the great doorway and vaulted hall were added by Dom Manoel some seventy years later. When Dom Duarte died in 1438, or when Huguet himself died not long after,[81] the work had only been carried out as far as the tops of the surrounding chapels, and so remained all through his son's and his grandson's reigns, although in his will the king had specially asked that the building should be carried on. In all this original part of the Capellas Imperfeitas there is little that differs from Huguet's work in the church. The b.u.t.tresses and corbel table are very similar (the pinnacles and parapets have been added since 1834), and the apses quite like those of the church. (Fig. 36.)

The tracery of the chief windows too is not unlike that of the lantern windows of the founder's chapel except that there is a well-marked transome half-way up--a feature which has been attributed to English influence--while the single windows of the tomb chambers are completely filled with geometric tracery. Inside, the capitals of the chapel arches as well as their rich cuspings are very like those of the founder's chapel; the capitals having octagonal abaci and stiff vine-leaves, and the trefoiled cusps ending in square vine-leaves, while the arch mouldings are, as in King Joo's chapel, more English than French in section. There is nothing now to show how the great central octagon was to be roofed--for the eight great piers which now rise high above the chapel were not built till the time of Dom Manoel--but it seems likely that the vault was meant to be low, and not to rise much above the chapel roofs, finishing, as everywhere else in the church, in a flat, paved terrace.

The only important addition made during the reigns of Dom Affonso V. and of Dom Joo II. was that of a second cloister, north of the Claustro Real, and still called the Cloister of Affonso. This cloister is as plain and wanting in ornament as everything else about the monastery is rich and elaborate, and it was probably built under the direction of Ferno d'Evora, who succeeded his uncle Martim Vasques as master of the works before 1448, and held that position for nearly thirty years.

Unlike the great cloister, whose large openings must, from the first, have been meant for tracery, the cloister of Affonso V. is so very plain and simple, that if its date were not known it would readily be attributed to a period older even than the foundation of the monastery.

On each side are seven square bays separated by perfectly plain b.u.t.tresses, each bay consisting of two very plain pointed arches resting on the moulded capitals of coupled shafts. Except for the b.u.t.tresses and the vault the cloister differs in no marked way from those at Guimares and elsewhere whose continuous pointed arcades show so little advance from the usual romanesque manner of cloister-building. Above is a second story of later date, in which the tiled roof rests on short columns placed rather far apart, and with no regard to the s.p.a.cing of the bays below. Round this are the kitchens and various domestic offices of the convent, and behind it lay another cloister, now utterly gone, having been burned by the French in 1810. Such are the church and monastery of Batalha as planned by Dom Joo and added to by his son and grandson, and though it is not possible to say whence Huguet drew his inspiration, it remains, with all the peculiarities of tracery and detail which make it seem strange and ungrammatical--if one may so speak--to eyes accustomed to northern Gothic, one of the most remarkable examples of original planning and daring construction to be found anywhere. Of the later additions which give character to the cloister and to the Capellas Imperfeitas nothing can be said till the time of Dom Manoel is reached.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 36.

BATALHA.

CAPELLAS IMPERFEITAS.

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

CHAPTER V

THE EARLIER FIFTEENTH CENTURY

[Sidenote: Guimares.]

Besides building Batalha, King Joo dedicated the spoils he had taken at Aljubarrota to the church of Nossa Senhora da Oliviera at Guimares, which he rebuilt from the designs of Juan Garcia of Toledo. The most important of these spoils is the silver-gilt reredos taken in the Spanish king's travelling chapel. It is in the shape of a triptych about four feet high. In the centre is represented the Virgin with the Infant Christ on a bed, with Joseph seated and leaning wearily on his staff at the foot, the figures being about fourteen inches high; above two angels swing censers, and the heads of an ox and an a.s.s appear feeding from a manger. All the background is richly diapered, and above are four cusped arches, separated by angels under canopies, while above the arches to the top there rises a rich ma.s.s of tabernacle work, with the window-like s.p.a.ces filled in with red or green enamel. At the top are two half-angels holding the arms of Portugal, added when the reredos was dedicated to Our Lady by Dom Joo. The two leaves, each about twenty inches wide, are divided into two equal stories, each of which has two cusped and canopied arches enclosing, those on the left above, the Annunciation, and below the Presentation, and those on the right, the Angel appearing to the Shepherds above, and the Wise Men below. All the tabernacle work is most beautifully wrought in silver, but the figures are less good, that of the Virgin Mary being distinctly too large.[82]

(Fig. 37.)

Of the other things taken from the defeated king's tent, only one silver angel now remains of the twelve which were sent to Guimares.

Of the church rebuilt in commemoration of this great victory, only the west front has escaped a terrible transformation carried out not so long ago, and which has made it impossible to see what the inside was once like. If the builder was a Spaniard, as his name, Juan Garcia de Toledo, seems to imply, there is nothing Spanish about his design. The door is like many another door of about the same period, with simple mouldings ornamented with small bosses, but the deeply recessed window above is most unusual. The tracery is gone, but the framing of the window remains, and is far more like that of a French door than of a window. On either jamb are two stories of three canopied niches, containing figures, while the arches are covered with small figures under canopies; all is rather rude, but the whole is most picturesque and original.

To the left rises the tower, standing forward from the church front: it is of three stories, with cable moulding at the corners, a picturesque cornice and battlements at the top; a bell gable in front, and a low octagonal spire. On the ground floor are two large windows defended by simple but good iron grilles, and in the upper part are large belfry windows. This is not the original tower, for that was pulled down in 1515, when the present one was built in its stead by Pedro Esteves Cogominho. Though of so late a date it is quite uninfluenced, not only by those numerous buildings of Dom Manoel's time, which are noted for their fantastic detail, but by the early renaissance which had already begun to show itself here and there, and it is one of the most picturesque church towers in the country.

A few feet to the west of the church there is a small open shrine or chapel, a square vault resting on four pointed arches which are well moulded, enriched with dog-tooth and surmounted by gables. This chapel was built soon after 1342 to commemorate the miracle to which the church owes its name. Early in the fourteenth century there grew at So Torquato, a few miles off, an olive-tree which provided the oil for that saint's lamp. It was transported to Guimares to fulfil a like office there for the altar of Our Lady. It naturally died, and so remained for many years till 1342, when one Pedro Esteves placed on it a cross which his brother had bought in Normandy. This was the 8th of September, and three days after the dead olive-tree broke into leaf, a miracle

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 37.

CAPELLA OF D. JUAN OF CASTILLE.

TAKEN AT THE BATTLE OF ALJUBARROTA BY JOO I, 1385, AND NOW IN THE TREASURY OF N.S. DA OLIVEIRA GUIMARES.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 38.

GUARDA.

N. SIDE OF CATHEDRAL.]

greatly to the advantage and wealth of the church and of the town. From that day the church was called Our Lady of the Olive Tree.

[Sidenote: Guarda.]

Far more interesting than this church, because much better preserved and because it is clearly derived, in part at least, from Batalha, is the cathedral of Guarda, begun by Joo I. Guarda is a small town, not far from the Spanish border, built on a hill rising high above the bleak surrounding tableland to a height of nearly four thousand feet, and was founded by Dom Sancho I. in 1197 to guard his frontier against the Spaniards and the Moors. Begun by Joo I. the plan and general design of the whole church must belong to the beginning of the fifteenth century, though the finishing of the nave, and the insertion of larger transept windows, were carried out under Dom Manoel, and though the great reredos is of the time of Dom Joo III. Yet the few chapels between the nave b.u.t.tresses are almost the only real additions made to the church. Though of but moderate dimensions, it is one of the largest of Portuguese cathedrals, being 175 feet long by 70 feet wide and 110 feet across the transepts. It is also unique among the aisled and vaulted churches in copying Batalha by having a well-developed clerestory and flying b.u.t.tresses.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CATHEDRAL. GUARDA.]

The plan consists of a nave and aisles of five bays, a transept projecting one bay beyond the aisles, and three apses to the east. At the crossing the vault is slightly raised so as to admit of four small round windows opening above the flat roofs of the central aisle and transepts. The only peculiarity about the plan lies in the two western towers, which near the ground are squares set diagonally to the front of the church and higher up change to octagons, and so rise a few feet above the flat roof. About the end of the fifteenth century two small chapels were added to the north of the nave, and later still the s.p.a.ces between the b.u.t.tresses were filled in with shallow altar recesses.

The likeness to Batalha is best seen in the Capella Mor. As the apse has only three instead of five sides, the windows are rather wider, and there are none below, but otherwise the resemblance is as great as may be, when the model is of fine limestone and the copy of granite. The b.u.t.tresses have offset string courses, and square crocketed pinnacles just as at Batalha; there has even been an attempt to copy the parapet, though only the trefoil corbel table is really like the model, for the parapet itself is solid with a cresting of rather clumsy fleurs-de-lis.

These pinnacles and this crested parapet are found everywhere all round the church, though the pinnacles on the aisle walls from which the plain flying b.u.t.tresses spring are quite different, being of a Manoelino design. Again the north transept door has evidently been inspired by the richness of Batalha. Here the door itself is plain, but well moulded, with above it an elaborately crocketed ogee drip-mould, which ends in a large finial; above this rises to a considerable height some arcaded panelling, ending at the top in a straight band of quatrefoil, and interrupted by a steep gable. (Fig. 38.)

No other part of the outside calls for much notice except the boat-keel corbels of the smaller apses, the straight gable-less ends to transept and nave which show that the roofs are flat and paved, and the western towers. These are of three stories. The lowest is square at the bottom and octagonal above, the change being effected by a curved offset at two corners, while at the third or western corner the curve has been cut down so as to leave room for an eighteenth-century window, lighting the small polygonal chapel inside, a chapel originally lit by two narrow round-headed windows on the diagonal sides. In the second story there are again windows on the same diagonal sides, but they have been built up: while on the third or highest division--where the octagon is complete on all sides--are four belfry windows. The whole is finished by a crested parapet. The west front between these towers is very plain. At the top a cresting, simpler than that elsewhere, below a round window without tracery, lower still two picturesque square rococo windows, and at the bottom a rather elaborate Manoelino doorway, built not many years ago to replace one of the same date as the windows above.

Throughout the clerestory windows are not large. They are round-headed of two lights, with simple tracery, and deep splays both inside and out.

The large transept windows with half octagonal heads under a large trefoil were inserted about the beginning of the sixteenth century.

Inside the resemblance to Batalha is less noticeable. The ribs of the chancel vault are well moulded, as are the arches of the lantern, but in the nave, which cannot have been finished till the end of the fifteenth century, the design is quite different. The piers are all a hollow square set diagonally with a large round shaft at each corner. In the aisle arches the hollows of the diagonal sides are carried round without capitals, with which the round shafts alone are provided; while the shaft in front runs up to a round Manoelino capital with octagonal abacus from which springs the vaulting at a level higher than the sills of the clerestory windows.[83] The most unusual part of the nave is the vaulting of all three aisles, where all the ribs, diagonal as well as transverse, are of exactly the same section and size as is the round shaft from which they spring, even the wall rib being of the same shape though a little smaller. At the crossing there are triple shafts on each side, those of the nave being twisted, which is another Manoelino feature. The nave then must be about a hundred years later than the eastern parts of the church, where the capitals are rather long and are carved with foliage and have square abaci, while those of the nave are all of the time of King Joo II. or of King Manoel. At about the same time some small and picturesque windows were inserted above the smaller apses on the east side of the transept, and rather later was built the chapel to the north-east of the nave, which is entered through a segmental arch whose jambs and head are well carved with early renaissance foliage and figures, and which contains the simple tomb of a bishop. The pulpits, organs, and stalls, both in the chancel and in the western choir gallery, are fantastic and late, but the great reredos which rises in three divisions to the springing of the vault is the largest and one of the finest in the country, but belonging as it does to a totally different period and school must be left for another chapter.

[Sidenote: Nossa Senhora do Vencimento do Monte do Carmo, Lisbon.]

Much need not be said about the Carmo at Lisbon, another church of the same date, as it has been almost entirely wrecked by the earthquake of 1755. The victory of Aljubarrota was due perhaps even more to the grand Constable of Portugal, Dom Nuno Alvares Pereira, than to the king himself, and, like the king, the Constable commemorated the victory by founding a monastery, a great Carmelite house in Lisbon. The church of Nossa Senhora do Vencimento do Monte do Carmo stands high up above the central valley of Lisbon on the very verge of the steep hill. Begun in July 1389 the foundations twice gave way, and it was only after the Constable had dismissed his first master and called in three men of the same name, Affonso, Goncalo, and Rodrigo Eannes, that a real beginning could be made, and it was not finished till 1423, when it was consecrated; at the same time the founder a.s.sumed the habit of a Carmelite and entered his own monastery to die eight years later, and to become an object of veneration to the whole people. In plan the church was almost exactly like that of Batalha, though with a shorter nave of only five bays.[84] To the east of the transept are still five apses--the best preserved part of the whole building--having windows and b.u.t.tresses like those at Batalha. The only other part of the church which has escaped destruction is the west door, a large simple opening of six moulded arches springing from twelve shafts whose capitals are carved with foliage. From what is left it seems that the church was more like what Batalha was planned to be, rather than what it became under the direction of Huguet: but the downfall of the nave has been so complete that it is only possible to make out that there must have been a well-developed clerestory and a high vaulted central aisle. What makes this destruction all the more regrettable is the fact that the church was full of splendid tombs, especially that of the Holy Constable himself: a magnificent piece of carving in alabaster sent from Flanders by Dom Joo's daughter, Isabel, d.u.c.h.ess of Flanders.[85]

After this catastrophe an attempt was made to rebuild the church, but little was done, and it still remains a complete ruin, having been used since the suppression of all monasteries in 1834 as an Archaeological Museum where many tombs and other architectural fragments may still be seen.

[Sidenote: Villar de Frades.]

Towards the end of King Joo's reign a man named Joo Vicente, noting the corruption into which the religious orders were falling, determined to do what he could by preaching and example to bring back a better state of things. He first began his work in Lisbon, but was driven from there by the bishop to find a refuge at Braga. There he so impressed the archbishop that he was given the decayed and ruined monastery of Villar de Frades in 1425. Soon he had gathered round him a considerable body of followers, to whom he gave a set of rules and who, after receiving the papal sanction, were known as the Canons Secular of St. John the Evangelist or, popularly, Loyos, because their first settlement in Lisbon was in a monastery formerly dedicated to St. Eloy. The church at Villar, which is of considerable size, was probably long of building, as the elliptical-headed west door with its naturalistic treelike posts has details which did not become common till at least the very end of the century. Inside the church consists of a nave of five bays, flanked with chapels but not aisles, transepts which are really only enlarged chapels, and a chancel like the nave but without chapels. The chief feature of the inside is the very elaborate vaulting, which with the number and intricacy of its ribs, is not at all unlike an English Perpendicular vault, and indeed would need but little change to develop into a fan vault. Here then there has been a considerable advance from the imperfect vaulting of the central aisle at Batalha, where the diagonal ribs had to be squeezed in wherever they could go, although there are at Villar no side aisles so that the construction of supporting b.u.t.tresses was of course easier than at Batalha: and it is well worth noticing how from so imperfect a beginning as the nave at Batalha the Portuguese masters soon learned to build elaborate and even wide vaults, without, as a rule, covering them with innumerable and meaningless twisting ribs as was usually done in Spain. In the north-westernmost chapel stands the font, an elaborate work of the early renaissance; an octagonal bowl with twisted sides resting on a short twisted base.

[Sidenote: Matriz, Alvito.]