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[Illustration: FROM THE MARVILLA, SANTAREM.]
[Illustration: FROM THE MARVILLA, SANTAREM; ALSO IN THE MATRIZ, ALVITO,
AND ELSEWHERE.]
PORTUGUESE ARCHITECTURE
BY
WALTER CRUM WATSON
_ILLUSTRATED_
LONDON
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE AND COMPANY
LIMITED
1908
Edinburgh: T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty
AOS MEUS QUERIDOS PARENTES E AMIGOS
A ILL^{MA} E EX^{MA} SN^{RA}
M. L. DOS PRADOS LARGOS
E OS
ILL^{MOS} E EX^{MOS} SNR^{ES}
BARONEZA E BARAO DE SOUTELLINHO
COMO RECONHECIMENTO PELAS AMABILIDADES E ATTENCOES
QUE ME DISPENSARAM NOS BELLOS DIAS QUE PASSEI
NA SUA COMPANHIA
COMO HOMENAGEM RESPEITOSA
O.D.C.
O AUCTOR
PREFACE
The buildings of Portugal, with one or two exceptions, cannot be said to
excel or even to come up to those of other countries. To a large extent
the churches are without the splendid furniture which makes those of
Spain the most romantic in the world, nor are they in themselves so
large or so beautiful. Some apology, then, may seem wanted for imposing
on the public a book whose subject-matter is not of first-class
importance.
The present book is the outcome of visits to Portugal in April or May of
three successive years; and during these visits the writer became so
fond of the country and of its people, so deeply interested in the
history of its glorious achievements in the past, and in the buildings
which commemorate these great deeds, that it seemed worth while to try
and interest others in them. Another reason for writing about Portugal
instead of about Spain is that the country is so much smaller that it is
no very difficult task to visit every part and see the various buildings
with one's own eyes: besides, in no language does there exist any book
dealing with the architecture of the country as a whole. There are some
interesting monographs in Portuguese about such buildings as the palace
at Cintra, or Batalha, while the Renaissance has been fully treated by
Albrecht Haupt, but no one deals at all adequately with what came before
the time of Dom Manoel.
Most of the plans in the book were drawn from rough measurements taken
on the spot and do not pretend to minute accuracy.
For the use of that of the Palace at Cintra the thanks of the writer are
due to Conde de Sabugosa, who allowed it to be copied from his book,
while the plan of Mafra was found in an old magazine.
Thanks are also due to Senhor Joaquim de Vasconcellos for much valuable
information, to his wife, Senhora Michaelis de Vasconcellos, for her
paper about the puzzling inscriptions at Batalha, and above all the
Baron and the Baroneza de Soutellinho, for their repeated welcome to
Oporto and for the trouble they have taken in getting books and
photographs.
That the book may be more complete there has been added a short account
of some of the church plate and paintings which still survive, as well
as of the tile work which is so universal and so characteristic.
As for the buildings, hardly any of any consequence have escaped notice.
EDINBURGH, 1907.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
PAGE
Portugal separated from Spain by no natural division geographical or
linguistic; does not correspond with Roman Lusitania, nor with the
later Suevic kingdom--Traces of early Celtic inhabitants; Citania,
Sabrosa--Roman Occupation; Temple at Evora--Barbarian Invasions--Arab
Conquest--Beginnings of Christian re-conquest--Sesnando,
first Count of Oporto--Christians defeated at Zalaca--Count
Henry of Burgundy and Dona Theresa--Beginnings of Portuguese
Independence--Affonso Henriques, King of Portugal--Growth of
Portugal--Victory of Aljubarrota--Prince Henry the Navigator--The
Spanish Usurpation--The Great Earthquake--The Peninsular
War--The Miguelite War--The suppression of the Monasteries--Differences
between Portugal and Spain, etc. 1-10
PAINTING IN PORTUGAL
Not very many examples of Portuguese paintings left--Early connection
with Burgundy; and with Antwerp--Great influence of
Flemish school--The myth of Grao Vasco--Pictures at Evora, at
Thomar, at Setubal, in Santa Cruz, Coimbra--'The Fountain of
Mercy' at Oporto--The pictures at Vizeu: 'St. Peter'--Antonio
de Hollanda 10-17
CHURCH PLATE
Much plate lost during the Peninsular War--Treasuries of Braga,
Coimbra, and Evora, and of Guimaraes--Early chalices, etc., at
Braga, Coimbra, and Guimaraes--Crosses at Guimaraes and at
Coimbra--Relics of St. Isabel--Flemish influence seen in later
work--Tomb of St. Isabel, and coffins of sainted abbesses of
Lorvao 17-20
TILES
Due to Arab influence--The word _azulejo_ and its origin--The different
stages in the development of tile making--Early tiles at Cintra
Moorish in pattern and in technique--Tiles at Bacalhoa Moorish in
technique but Renaissance in pattern--Later tiles without Moorish
technique, _e.g._ at Santarem and elsewhere--Della Robbia ware at
Bacalhoa--Pictures in blue and white tiles very common 20-28
CHAPTER I
THE EARLY BUILDINGS IN THE NORTH
The oldest buildings are in the North--Very rude and simple--Three
types--Villarinho--Sao Miguel, Guimaraes--Cedo Feita, Oporto--Gandara,
Boelhe, etc., are examples of the simplest--Aguas Santas,
Rio Mau, etc., of the second; and of the third Villar de Frades,
etc.--Legend of Villar--Se, Braga--Se, Oporto--Paco de Souza--Method
of roofing--Tomb of Egas Moniz--Pombeiro--Castle
and Church, Guimaraes 29-43
CHAPTER II
THE EARLY BUILDINGS IN THE SOUTH
Growth of Christian kingdom under Affonso Henriques--His vow--Capture
of Santarem, of Lisbon--Cathedral, Lisbon, related to Church
of S. Sernin, Toulouse--Ruined by Great Earthquake, and badly
restored--Se Velha, Coimbra, general scheme copied from Santiago
and so from S. Sernin, Toulouse--Other churches at Coimbra--Evora,
its capture--Cathedral founded--Similar in scheme to
Lisbon, but with pointed arches; central lantern; cloister--Thomar
founded by Gualdim Paes; besieged by Moors--Templar Church--Santarem,
Church of Sao Joao de Alporao--Alcobaca; great wealth
of Abbey--Designed by French monks--Same plan as Clairvaux--Has
but little influence on later buildings 44-63
CHAPTER III
THE THIRTEENTH AND FOURTEENTH CENTURIES DOWN TO
THE BATTLE OF ALJUBARROTA
The thirteenth century poor in buildings--The Franciscans--Sao
Francisco Guimaraes--Santarem--Santa Maria dos Olivaes at
Thomar--_Cf._ aisle windows at Leca do Balio--Inactivity and
deposition of Dom Sancho II. by Dom Affonso III.--Conquest of
Algarve--Se, Silves--Dom Diniz and the castles at Beja and at
Leiria--Cloisters, Cellas, Coimbra, Alcobaca, Lisbon, and Oporto--St.
Isabel and Sta. Clara at Coimbra--Leca do Balio--The choir
of the cathedral, Lisbon, with tombs--Alcobaca, royal tombs--Dom
Pedro I. and Inez de Castro; her murder, his sorrow--Their tombs
64-78
CHAPTER IV
BATALHA AND THE DELIVERANCE OF PORTUGAL
Dom Fernando and Dona Leonor Telles--Her wickedness and unpopularity--Their
daughter, Dona Brites, wife of Don Juan of Castile, rejected--Dom
Joao I. elected king--Battle of Aljubarrota--Dom Joao's
vow--Marriage of Dom Joao and Philippa of Lancaster--Batalha
founded; its plan national, not foreign; some details seem English,
some French, some even German--Huguet the builder did not copy
York or Canterbury--Tracery very curious--Inside very plain--Capella
do Fundador, with the royal tombs--Capellas Imperfeitas 79-92
CHAPTER V
THE EARLIER FIFTEENTH CENTURY
Nossa Senhora da Oliveira Guimaraes rebuilt as a thankoffering--Silver
reredos captured at Aljubarrota--The cathedral, Guarda--Its likeness
to Batalha--Nave later--Nuno Alvarez Pereira, the Grand
Constable, and the Carmo, Lisbon--Joao Vicente and Villar de
Frades--Alvito, Matriz--Capture of Ceuta--Tombs in the Graca,
Santarem--Dom Pedro de Menezes and his 'Aleo'--Tomb of
Dom Duarte de Menezes in Sao Joao de Alporao--Tombs at
Abrantes cloister--Thomar 93-103
CHAPTER VI
LATER GOTHIC
Graca, Santarem--Parish churches, Thomar, Villa do Conde, Azurara
and Caminha, all similar in plan--Cathedrals: Funchal, Lamego,
and Vizeu--Porch and chancel of cathedral, Braga--Conceicao,
Braga 104-115
CHAPTER VII
THE INFLUENCE OF THE MOORS
Few buildings older than the re-conquest--But many built for Christians
by Moors--The Palace, Cintra--Originally country house of the
Walis--Rebuilt by Dom Joao I.--Plan and details Moorish--Entrance
court--Sala dos Cysnes, why so called, its windows;
Sala do Conselho; Sala das Pegas, its name, chimney-piece; Sala
das Sereias; dining-room; Pateo, baths; Sala dos Arabes;
Pateo de Diana; chapel; kitchen--Castles at Guimaraes and at
Barcellos--Villa de Feira 116-128
CHAPTER VIII
OTHER MOORISH BUILDINGS
Commoner in Alemtejo--Castle, Alvito--Not Sansovino's Palace--Evora,
Pacos Reaes, Cordovis, Sempre Nova, Sao Joao Evangelista,
Sao Francisco, Sao Braz 129-135
CHAPTER IX
MOORISH CARPENTRY
Examples found all over the country--At Aguas Santas, Azurara,
Caminha and Funchal--Cintra, Sala dos Cysnes, Sala dos Escudos--Coimbra,
Misericordia, hall of University--Ville do Conde Santa
Clara, Aveiro convent 136-142
CHAPTER X
EARLY MANOELINO
Joao II. continues the policy of Prince Henry the Navigator--Bartholomeu
Diaz, Vasco da Gama--Accession of Dom Manoel--Discovery
of route to India, and of Brazil--Great wealth of King--Fails
to unite all the kingdoms of the Peninsula--Characteristic
features of Manoelino--House of Garcia de Resende, Evora--Caldas
da Rainha--Setubal, Jesus--Beja, Conceicao, Castle, etc.--Cintra,
Palace--Gollega, Church--Elvas, Cathedral--Santarem,
Marvilla--Lisbon, Madre de Deus--Coimbra, University Chapel--Setubal,
Sao Juliao 143-156
CHAPTER XI
THOMAR AND THE CONQUEST OF INDIA
Vasco da Gama's successful voyage to Calicut, 1497--Other expeditions
lead to discovery of Brazil--Titles conferred on Dom Manoel
by Pope Alexander VI.--Ormuz taken--Strange forms at Thomar
not Indian--Templars suppressed and Order of Christ founded
instead--Prince Henry Grand Master--Spiritual supremacy of
Thomar over all conquests, made or to be made--Templar church
added to by Prince Henry, and more extensively by Dom Manoel--Joao
de Castilho builds Coro--Stalls burnt by French--South
door, chapter-house and its windows--Much of the detail emblematic
of the discoveries, etc., made in the East and in the West
157-170
CHAPTER XII
THE ADDITIONS TO BATALHA
Dom Duarte's tomb-house unfinished--Work resumed by Dom
Manoel--The two Matheus Fernandes, architects--The Pateo--The
great entrance--Meaning of 'Tanyas Erey'--Piers in Octagon--How
was the Octagon to be roofed?--The great Cloister, with
its tracery--Whence derived 171-180
CHAPTER XIII
BELEM
Torre de Sao Viente built to defend Lisbon--Turrets and balconies
not Indian--Vasco da Gama sails from Belem--The great monastery
built as a thankoffering for the success of his voyage--Begun by
Boutaca, succeeded by Lourenco Fernandes, and then by Joao de
Castilho--Plan due to Boutaca--Master Nicolas, the Frenchman,
the first renaissance artist in Portugal--Plan: exterior; interior
superior to exterior; stalls; cloister, lower and upper--Lisbon,
Conceicao Velha, also by Joao de Castilho 181-195
CHAPTER XIV
THE COMING OF THE FOREIGN ARTISTS
Coimbra, Sta. Cruz, founded by Dom Affonso Henriques, rebuilt by
Dom Manoel, first architect Marcos Pires--Gregorio Lourenco
clerk of the works--Diogo de Castilho succeeds Marcos Pires--West
front, Master Nicolas--Cloister, inferior to that of Belem--Royal
tombs--Other French carvers--Pulpit, reredoses in cloister,
stalls--Se Velha reredos, doors--Chapel of Sao Pedro 196-210
CHAPTER XV
THE INFLUENCE OF THE FOREIGNERS
Tomb at Thomar of the Bishop of Funchal--Tomb in Graca, Santarem--Sao
Marcos, founded by Dona Brites de Menezes--Tomb of
Fernao Telles--Rebuilt by Ayres da Silva, her grandson--Tombs
in chancel--Reredos, by Master Nicolas--Reredos at Cintra--Pena
Chapel by same--Sao Marcos, Chapel of the Reyes Magos--Sansovino's
door, Cintra--Evora, Sao Domingos--Portalegre,
Tavira, Lagos, Goes, Trofa, Caminha, Moncorvo 211-221
CHAPTER XVI
LATER WORK OF JOAO DE CASTILHO AND EARLIER CLASSIC
Joao III. cared more for the Church than for anything else--Decay
begins--Later additions to Alcobaca--Batalha, Sta. Cruz--Thomar,
Order of Christ reformed--Knights become regulars--Great
additions, cloisters, dormitory, etc., by Joao de Castilho--His
difficulties, letters to the King--His addition to Batalha--Builds
Conceicao at Thomar like Milagre, Santarem--Marvilla, _ibid._;
Elvas, Sao Domingos--Cintra, Penha Longa and Penha Verde--Vizeu,
Cloister--Lamego, Cloister--Coimbra, Sao
Thomaz--Carmo--Faro--Lorvao--Amarante--Santarem, Santa Clara, and
Guarda, reredos 222-239
CHAPTER XVII
THE LATER RENAISSANCE AND THE SPANISH USURPATION
Diogo de Torralva and Claustro dos Filippes, Thomar--Miranda de
Douro--Reigns of Dom Sebastiao and of the Cardinal King
Henry not noted for much building--Evora, Graca and University--Fatal
expedition by Dom Sebastiao to Morocco--His death and
defeat--Feeble reign of his grand-uncle--Election of Philip--Union
with Spain and consequent loss of trade--Lisbon, Sao
Roque; coming of Terzi--Lisbon, Sao Vicente de Fora; first use
of very long Doric pilasters--Santo Antao, Santa Maria do
Desterro, and Torreao do Paco--Se Nova, Coimbra, like Santo
Antao--Oporto, Collegio Novo--Coimbra, Misericordia, Bishop's
palace; Sacristy of Se Velha, Sao Domingos, Carmo, Graca, Sao
Bento by Alvares--Lisbon, Sao Bento--Oporto, Sao Bento 240-253
CHAPTER XVIII
OTHER BUILDINGS OF THE LATER RENAISSANCE, TILL THE
EXPULSION OF THE SPANIARDS
Vianna do Castello, Misericordia--Beja, Sao Thiago--Azeitao, Sao
Simao--Evora, Cartuxa--Beja, Misericordia--Oporto, Nossa
Senhora da Serra do Pilar--Sheltered Wellington before he crossed
the Douro--Besieged by Dom Miguel--Very original plan--Coimbra,
Sacristy of Santa Cruz--Lisbon, Santa Engracia never
finished--Doric pilasters too tall--Coimbra, Santa Clara, great
abuse of Doric pilasters 254-260
CHAPTER XIX
THE RESTORATION AND THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
The expulsion of the Spaniards--Long war: final success of Portugal
and recovered prosperity--Mafra founded by Dom Joao V.--Compared
with the Escorial--Designed by a German--Palace, church,
library, etc.--Evora, Capella Mor--Great Earthquake--The
Marques de Pombal--Lisbon, Estrella--Oporto, Torre dos
Clerigos--Oporto, Quinta do Freixo--Queluz--Quinta at
Guimaraes--Oporto, hospital and factory--Defeat of Dom
Miguel and suppression of monasteries 261-271
BOOKS CONSULTED 272
INDEX 273
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
_To face page_
1. Guimaraes, House from Sabrosa } 4
2. Evora, Temple of 'Diana' }
3. Oporto, Fountain of Mercy 14
4. Vizeu, St. Peter, in Sacristy of Cathedral 16
5. Coimbra, Cross in Cathedral Treasury }
6. " Chalice " " } 20
7. " Monstrance " " }
8. Cintra, Palace, Sala dos Arabes } 24
9. " " Dining-room }
10. Santarem, Marvilla, coloured wall tiles } _frontispiece_.
11. " " }
12. Vallarinho, Parish Church } 32
13. Villar de Frades, West Door }
14. Paco de Souza, Interior of Church } 40
15. " " Tomb of Egas Moniz }
16. Guimaraes, N. S. da Oliveira, Chapter-house Entrance } 42
17. Leca do Balio, Cloister }
18. Coimbra, Se Velha, Interior } 50
19. " " West Front }
20. Evora, Cathedral, Interior } 54
21. " " Central Lantern }
22. Evora, Cloister } 56
23. Thomar, Templar Church }
24. Santarem, Sao Joao de Alporao } 58
25. Alcobaca, South Transept }
26. Santarem, Sao Francisco, West Door } 66
27. Silves, Cathedral, Interior }
28. Alcobaca Cloister } 72
29. Lisbon, Cathedral Cloister }
30. Coimbra, Sta. Clara 74
31. Alcobaca, Chapel with Royal Tombs } 78
32. " Tomb of Dom Pedro I. }
33. Batalha, West Front 86
34. Batalha, Interior } 88
35. " Capella do Fundador }
36. Batalha, Capellas Imperfeitas 92
37. Guimaraes, Capella of D. Juan I. of Castile } 94
38. Guarda, North Side of Cathedral }
39. Santarem, Tomb of Dom Pedro de Menezes } 102
40. " Tomb of Dom Duarte de Menezes }
41. Villa do Conde, West Front of Parish Church 108
42. Vizeu, Interior of Cathedral } 112
43. Braga, Cathedral Porch }
44. Cintra, Palace, Main Front } 120
45. " " Window in 'Sala das Sereias' }
46. Cintra, Palace, Ceiling of Chapel 126
47. Alvito, Castle } 132
48. Evora, Sao Joao Evangelista, Door to Chapter-house }
49. Caminha, Roof of Matriz } 138
50. Cintra, Palace, Ceiling of Sala dos Cysnes }
51. Coimbra, University, Ceiling of Sala dos Capellos 142
52. Cintra, Palace, additions by D. Manoel 152
53. Santarem, Marvilla, West Door } 154
54. Coimbra, University Chapel Door }
55. Thomar, Convent of Christ, South Door } 166
56. " " " Chapter-house Window }
57. Batalha, Entrance to Capellas Imperfeitas 174
58. Batalha, Window of Pateo } 178
59. " Upper part of Capellas Imperfeitas }
60. Batalha, Claustro Real } 180
61. Batalha, Lavatory in Claustro Real }
62. Belem, Torre de Sao Vicente } 184
63. Belem, Sacristy }
64. Belem, South side of Nave } 190
65. " Interior, looking west }
66. Belem, Cloister } 194
67. " Interior of Lower Cloister }
68. Lisbon, Conceicao Velha 196
69. Coimbra, Sta. Cruz, West Front } 200
70. " " Cloister }
71. Coimbra, Sta. Cruz, Tomb of D. Sancho I. } 202
72. " " Pulpit }
73. Coimbra, Sta. Cruz, Reredos in Cloister } 206
74. " " Choir Stalls }
75. Coimbra, Se Velha, Reredos } 209
76. " " Reredos in Chapel of Sao Pedro}
77. Thomar, Sta. Maria dos Olivaes, Tomb of the Bishop of Funchal } 212
78. Sao Marcos, Tomb of D. Joao da Silva }
79. Sao Marcos, Chancel } 218
80. " Chapel of the 'Reyes Magos' }
81. Cintra, Palace, Door by Sansovino } 220
82. Caminha, West Door of Church }
83. Alcobaca, Sacristy Door } 224
84. Batalha, Door of Sta. Cruz }
85. Thomar, Claustro da Hospedaria } 228
86. " Chapel in Dormitory Passage }
87. Thomar, Stair in Claustro dos Filippes } 230
88. " Chapel of the Conceicao }
89. Santarem, Marvilla, Interior } 236
90. Vizeu, Cathedral Cloister }
91. Guarda, Cathedral Reredos } 240
92. Thomar, Claustro dos Filippes }
93. Lisbon, Sao Vicente de Fora } 246
94. " " " Interior }
95. Coimbra, Se Nova } 250
96. " Misericordia }
97. Vianna do Castello, Misericordia 254
98. Oporto, N. S. da Serra do Pilar, Cloister} 258
99. Coimbra, Sta. Cruz, Sacristy }
100. Mafra, West Front } 266
101. " Interior of Church }
[Illustration: map of Portugal]
INTRODUCTION
No one can look at a map of the Iberian Peninsula without being struck
by the curious way in which it is unequally divided between two
independent countries. Spain occupies by far the larger part of the
Peninsula, leaving to Portugal only a narrow strip on the western
seaboard some one hundred miles wide and three hundred and forty long.
Besides, the two countries are separated the one from the other by
merely artificial boundaries. The two largest rivers of the Peninsula,
the Douro and the Tagus, rise in Spain, but finish their course in
Portugal, and the Guadiana runs for some eighty miles through Portuguese
territory before acting for a second time as a boundary between the two
countries. The same, to a lesser degree, is true of the mountains. The
Gerez and the Marao are only offshoots of the Cantabrian mountains, and
the Serra da Estrella in Beira is but a continuation of the Sierra de
Gata which separates Leon from Spanish Estremadura. Indeed the only
natural frontiers are formed by the last thirty miles of the Minho in
the north, by about eighty miles of the Douro, which in its deep and
narrow gorge really separates Traz os Montes from Leon; by a few miles
of the Tagus, and by the Guadiana both before and after it runs through
a part of Alemtejo.
If the languages of the two countries were radically unlike this curious
division would be more easy to understand, but in reality Castilian
differs from Portuguese rather in pronunciation than in anything else;
indeed differs less from Portuguese than it does from Catalunan.[1]
During the Roman dominion none of the divisions of the Peninsula
corresponded exactly with Portugal. Lusitania, which the poets of the
Renaissance took to be the Roman name of their country, only reached up
to the Douro, and took in a large part of Leon and the whole of Spanish
Estremadura.
In the time of the Visigoths, a Suevic kingdom occupied most of Portugal
to the north of the Tagus, but included also all Galicia and part of
Leon; and during the Moorish occupation there was nothing which at all
corresponded with the modern divisions.
It was, indeed, only by the gradual Christian re-conquest of the country
from the Moors that Portugal came into existence, and only owing to the
repeated failure of the attempt to unite the two crowns of Portugal and
Castile by marriage that they have remained separated to the present
day.
Of the original inhabitants of what is now Portugal little is known, but
that they were more Celtic than Iberian seems probable from a few Celtic
words which have survived, such as _Mor_ meaning _great_ as applied to
the _Capella Mor_ of a church or to the title of a court official. The
name too of the Douro has probably nothing to do with gold but is
connected with a Celtic word for water. The Tua may mean the 'gushing'
river, and the Ave recalls the many Avons. _Ebora_, now Evora, is very
like the Roman name of York, Eboracum. _Briga_, too, the common
termination of town names in Roman times as in Conimbriga--Condeixa a
Velha--or Cetobriga, near Setubal--in Celtic means _height_ or
_fortification_. All over the country great rude stone monuments are to
be found, like those erected by primitive peoples in almost every part
of Europe, and the most interesting, the curious buildings found at
various places near Guimaraes, seem to belong to a purely Celtic
civilisation.
The best-known of these places, now called Citania--from a name of a
native town mentioned by ancient writers--occupies the summit of a hill
about nine hundred feet above the road and nearly half-way between
Guimaraes and Braga. The top of this hill is covered with a number of
structures, some round from fifteen to twenty feet across, and some
square, carefully built of well-cut blocks of granite. The only opening
is a door which is often surrounded by an architrave adorned with rough
carving; the roofs seem to have been of wood and tiles.
Some, not noticing the three encircling walls and the well-cut
water-channels, and thinking that the round buildings far exceeded the
rectangular in number, have thought that they might have been intended
for granaries where corn might be stored against a time of war. But it
seems far more likely that Citania was a town placed on this high hill
for safety. Though the remains show no other trace of Roman
civilisation, one or two of the houses are inscribed with their owner's
names in Roman character, and from coins found there they seem to have
been inhabited long after the surrounding valleys had been subdued by
the Roman arms, perhaps even after the great baths had been built not
far off at the hot springs of Taipas. Uninfluenced by Rome, Citania was
also untouched by Christianity, though it may have been inhabited after
St. James--if indeed he ever preached in Bracara Augusta, now Braga--and
his disciple Sao Pedro de Rates had begun their mission.
But if Citania knew nothing of Christianity there still remains one
remarkable monument of the native religion. Among the ruins there long
lay a huge thin slab of granite, now in the museum of Guimaraes, which
certainly has the appearance of having been a sacrificial stone. It is a
rough pentagon with each side measuring about five feet. On one side, in
the middle, a semicircular hollow has been cut out as if to leave room
for the sacrificing priest, while on the surface of the stone a series
of grooves has been cut, all draining to a hole near this hollow and
arranged as if for a human body with outstretched legs and arms. The
rest of the surface is covered with an intricate pattern like what may
often be found on Celtic stones in Scotland. Besides this so-called
Citania similar buildings have been found elsewhere, as at Sabrosa, also
near Guimaraes, but there the Roman influence seems usually to have been
greater. (Fig. 1.)
The Romans began to occupy the Peninsula after the second Punic war, but
the conquest of the west and north was not completed till the reign of
Augustus more than two hundred years later. The Roman dominion over what
is now Portugal lasted for over four hundred years, and the chief
monument of their occupation is found in the language. More material
memorials are the milestones which still stand in the Gerez, some
tombstones, and some pavements and other remains at Condeixa a Velha,
once Conimbriga, near Coimbra and at the place now called Troya, perhaps
the original Cetobriga, on a sandbank opposite Setubal, a town whose
founders were probably Phoenicians.
But more important than any of these is the temple at Evora, now without
any reason called the temple of Diana. During the middle ages, crowned
with battlements, with the spaces between the columns built up, it was
later degraded by being turned into a slaughter-house, and was only
cleared of such additions a few years since. Situated near the
cathedral, almost on the highest part of the town, it stands on a
terrace whose great retaining wall still shows the massiveness of Roman
work.
Of the temple itself there remains about half of the podium, some eleven
feet high, fourteen granite columns, twelve of which still retain their
beautiful Corinthian capitals, and the architrave and part of the frieze
resting on these twelve capitals. Everything is of granite except the
capitals and bases which are of white marble; but instead of the
orthodox twenty-four flutes each column has only twelve, with a
distinctly unpleasing result. The temple seems to have been hexastyle
peripteral, but all trace of the cella has disappeared. Nothing is known
of the temple or who it was that built it, but in Roman times Evora was
one of the chief cities of Lusitania; nothing else is left but the
temple, for the aqueduct has been rebuilt and the so-called Tower of
Sertorius was mediaeval. Yet, although it may have less to show than
Merida, once Augusta Emerita and the capital of the province, this
temple is the best-preserved in the whole peninsula. (Fig. 2.)
Before the Roman dominion came to an end, in the first quarter of the
fifth century, Christianity had been for some time firmly established.
Religious intolerance also, which nearly a thousand years later made
Spain the first home of the Inquisition, had already made itself
manifest in the burning of the heretical Priscillianists by Idacius,
whose see was at or near Lamego.
Soon, however, the orthodox were themselves to suffer, for the Vandals,
the Goths, and the Suevi, who swept across the country from 417 A.D.,
were Arians, and it was only after many years had passed that the ruling
Goths and Suevi were converted to the Catholic faith.
The Vandals soon passed on to Africa, leaving their name in Andalucia
and the whole land to the Goths and Suevi, the
[Illustration: FIG. 1.
HOUSE FROM SABROSA.
NOW IN MUSEUM, GUIMARAES.
]
[Illustration: FIG. 2.
EVORA.
TEMPLE OF "DIANA."
]
Suevi at first occupying the whole of Portugal north of the Tagus as
well as Galicia and part of Leon. Later they were expelled from the
southern part of their dominion, but they as well as the Goths have left
practically no mark on the country, for the church built at Oporto by
the Suevic king, Theodomir, on his conversion to orthodoxy in 559, has
been rebuilt in the eleventh or twelfth century.
These Germanic rulers seem never to have been popular with those they
governed, so that when the great Moslem invasion crossed from Morocco in
711 and, defeating King Roderick at Guadalete near Cadiz, swept in an
incredibly short time right up to the northern mountains, the whole
country submitted with scarcely a struggle.
A few only of the Gothic nobles took refuge on the seaward slopes of the
Cantabrian mountains in the Asturias and there made a successful stand,
electing Don Pelayo as their king.
As time went on, Pelayo's descendants crossed the mountains, and taking
Leon gradually extended their small kingdom southwards.
Meanwhile other independent counties or principalities further east were
gradually spreading downwards. The nearest was Castile, so called from
its border castles, then Navarre, then Aragon, and lastly the county of
Barcelona or Cataluna.
Galicia, in the north-west corner, never having been thoroughly
conquered by the invaders, was soon united with the Asturias and then
with Leon. So all these Christian realms, Leon--including Galicia and
Asturias--Castile, and Aragon, which was soon united to Cataluna, spread
southwards, faster when the Moslems were weakened by division, slower
when they had been united and strengthened by a fresh wave of fanaticism
from Africa. Navarre alone was unable to grow, for the lower Ebro valley
was won by the kings of Aragon, while Castile as she grew barred the way
to the south-west.
At last in 1037 Fernando I. united Castile and Leon into one kingdom,
extending from the sea in the north to the lower course of the Douro and
to the mountains dividing the upper Douro from the Tagus valley in the
south. Before Fernando died in 1065 he had extended his frontier on the
west as far south as the Mondego, making Sesnando, a converted Moslem,
count of this important marchland. Then followed a new division, for
Castile went to King Sancho, Leon to Alfonso VI., and Galicia, including
the two counties of Porto and of Coimbra, to Garcia.
Before long, however, Alfonso turned out his brothers and also extended
his borders even to the Tagus by taking Toledo in 1085. But his
successes roused the Moslem powers to fresh fanaticism. A new and
stricter dynasty, the Almoravides,[2] arose in Africa and crossing the
straits inflicted a crushing defeat on the Christians at Zalaca. In
despair at this disaster and at the loss of Santarem and of Lisbon,
Alfonso appealed to Christendom for help. Among those who came were
Count Raymond of Toulouse, who was rewarded with the kingdom of Galicia
and the hand of his daughter and heiress Urraca, and Count Henry of
Burgundy, who was granted the counties of Porto and of Coimbra and who
married another daughter of Alfonso's, Theresa.
This was really the first beginning of Portugal as an independent state;
for Portugal, derived from two towns Portus and Cales, which lie
opposite each other near the mouth of the Douro, was the name given to
Henry's county. Henry did but little to make himself independent as he
was usually away fighting elsewhere, but his widow Theresa refused to
acknowledge her sister Urraca, now queen of Castile, Leon and Galicia,
as her superior, called herself Infanta and behaved as if she was no
one's vassal. Fortunately for her and her aims, Urraca was far too busy
fighting with her second husband, the king of Aragon, to pay much
attention to what was happening in the west, so that she had time to
consolidate her power and to accustom her people to think of themselves
as being not Galicians but Portuguese.
The breach with Galicia was increased by the favour which Theresa, after
a time, began to show to her lover, Don Fernando Peres de Trava, a
Galician noble, and by the grants of lands and of honours she made to
him. This made her so unpopular that when Alfonso Raimundes, Urraca's
son, attacked Theresa in 1127, made her acknowledge him as suzerain, and
give up Tuy and Orense, Galician towns she had taken, the people rose
against her and declared her son Affonso Henriques old enough to reign.
Then took place the famous submission of Egas Moniz, Affonso's governor,
who induced the king to retire from the siege of Guimaraes by promising
that his pupil would agree to the terms forced on his mother. This,
though but seventeen, Affonso refused to do, and next year raising an
army he expelled his mother and Don Fernando, and after four wars with
his cousin of Castile finally succeeded in maintaining his independence,
and even in assuming the title of King.
These wars with Castile taught him at last that the true way to increase
his realm was to leave Christian territory alone and to direct his
energies southwards, gaining land only at the expense of the Moors.
So did the kingdom of Portugal come into existence, almost accidentally
and without there being any division of race or of language between its
inhabitants and those of Galicia.
The youngest of all the Peninsular kingdoms, it is the only one which
still remains separate from the rest of the Spains, for when in 1580
union was forced on her by Philip II., Portugal had had too glorious a
past, and had become too different in language and in custom easily to
submit to so undesired a union, while Spain, already suffering from
coming weakness and decay, was not able long to hold her in such hated
bondage.
It is not necessary here to tell the story of each of Affonso Henriques'
descendants. He himself permanently extended the borders of his kingdom
as far as the Tagus, and even raided the Moslem lands of the south as
far as Ourique, beyond Beja. His son, Sancho I., finding the Moors too
strong to make any permanent conquests beyond the Tagus, devoted himself
chiefly--when not fighting with the king of Castile and Leon--to
rebuilding and restoring the towns in Beira, and it was not till the
reign of his grandson, Affonso III., that the southern sea was reached
by the taking of the Algarve in the middle of the thirteenth century.
Dom Diniz, Affonso III.'s son, carried on the work of settling the
country, building castles and planting pine-trees to stay the blowing
sands along the west coast.
From that time on Portugal was able to hold her own, and was strong
enough in 1387 to defeat the king of Castile at Aljubarrota when he
tried to seize the throne in right of his wife, only child of the late
Portuguese king, Fernando.
Under the House of Aviz, whose first king, Joao I., had been elected to
repel this invasion, Portugal rose to the greatest heights of power and
of wealth to which the country was ever to attain. The ceaseless efforts
of Dom Henrique, the Navigator, the third son of Dom Joao, were crowned
with success when Vasco da Gama landed at Calicut in May 1498, and when
Pedro Alvares Cabral first saw the coasts of Brazil in 1500.
To-day one is too ready to forget that Portugal was the pioneer in
geographical discovery, that the Portuguese were the first Westerns to
reach Japan, and that, had Joao II. listened to Columbus, it would have
been to Portugal and not to Spain that he would have given a new world.
It was, too, under the House of Aviz that the greatest development in
architecture took place, and that the only original and distinctive
style of architecture was formed. That was also the time when the few
good pictures which the country possesses were painted, and when much of
the splendid church plate which still exists was wrought.
The sixty years of the Spanish captivity, as it was called, from 1580 to
1640, were naturally comparatively barren of all good work. After the
restoration of peace and a revival of the Brazilian trade had brought
back some of the wealth which the country had lost, the art of building
had fallen so low that of the many churches rebuilt or altered during
the eighteenth century there is scarcely one possessed of the slightest
merit.
The most important events of the eighteenth century were the great
earthquakes of 1755 and the ministry of the Marques de Pombal.
Soon after the beginning of the nineteenth century came the invasion led
by Junot, 1807, the flight of the royal family to Brazil, and the
Peninsular War. Terrible damage was done by the invaders, cart-loads of
church plate were carried off, and many a monastery was sacked and
burned. Peace had not long been restored when the struggle broke out
between the constitutional party under Pedro of Brazil, who had resigned
the throne of Portugal in favour of his daughter, Maria da Gloria, and
the absolutists under Dom Miguel, his brother.
The civil war lasted for several years, from May 1828, when Dom Miguel,
then regent for his niece, summoned the Cortes and caused himself to be
elected king, till May 1834, when he was finally defeated at Evora
Monte and forced to leave the country. The chief events of his
usurpation were the siege of Oporto and the defeat of his fleet off Cape
St. Vincent in 1833 by Captain Charles Napier, who fought for Dona Maria
under the name of Carlos de Ponza.
One of the first acts of the constitutional Cortes was to suppress all
the monasteries in the kingdom in 1834. At the same time the nunneries
were forbidden to receive any new nuns, with the result that in many
places the buildings have gradually fallen into decay, till the last
surviving sister has died, solitary and old, and so at length set free
her home to be turned to some public use.[3]
Since then the history of Portugal has been quiet and uneventful. Good
roads have been made--but not always well kept up--railways have been
built, and Lisbon, once known as the dirtiest of towns, has become one
of the cleanest, with fine streets, electric lighting, a splendidly
managed system of electric tramways, and with funiculars and lifts to
connect the higher parts of the town with its busy centre.
It is not uninteresting to notice in how many small matters Portugal now
differs from Spain. Portugal drinks tea, Spain chocolate or coffee; it
lunches and dines early, Spain very late; its beds and pillows are very
hard, in Spain they are much softer. Travelling too in Portugal is much
pleasanter; as the country is so much smaller, trains leave at much more
reasonable hours, run more frequently, and go more quickly. The inns
also, even in small places, are, if not luxurious, usually quite clean
with good food, and the landlord treats his guests with something more
pleasing than that lofty condescension which is so noticeable in Spain.
Of the more distant countries of Europe, Portugal is now one of the
easiest to reach. Forty-eight hours from Southampton in a boat bound for
South America lands the traveller at Vigo, or three days at Lisbon,
where the brilliant sun and blue sky, the judas-trees in the Avenida,
the roses, the palms, and the sheets of bougainvillia, are such an
unimaginable change from the cold March winds and pinched buds of
England.
There is perhaps no country in Europe which has so interesting a flora,
especially in spring. In March in the granite north the ground under the
pine-trees is covered with the exquisite flowers of the narcissus
triandrus,[4] while the wet water meadows are yellow with petticoat
daffodils. Other daffodils too abound, but these are the commonest.
Later the granite rocks are hidden by great trees of white broom, while
from north to south every wild piece of land is starred with the
brilliant blue flowers of the lithospermum. There are also endless
varieties of cistus, from the small yellow annual with rich brown heart
to the large gum cistus that covers so much of the poor soil in the
Alemtejo. These plains of the Alemtejo are supposed to be the least
beautiful part of the country, but no one can cross them in April
without being almost overcome with the beauty of the flowers, cistus,
white, yellow, or red, tall white heaths, red heaths, blue lithospermum,
yellow whin, and most brilliant of all the large pimpernel, whose blue
flowers almost surpass the gentian. A little further on where there is
less heath and cistus, tall yellow and blue Spanish irises stand up out
of the grass, or there may be great heads of blue scilla peruviana or
sheets of small iris of the brightest blue.
Indeed, sheets of brilliant colour are everywhere most wonderful. There
may be acres of rich purple where the bugloss hides the grass, or of
brilliant yellow where the large golden daisies grow thickly together,
or of sky-blue where the convolvulus has smothered a field of oats.
PAINTING IN PORTUGAL.[5]
From various causes Portugal is far less rich in buildings of interest
than is Spain. The earthquake has destroyed many, but more have perished
through tasteless rebuilding during the eighteenth century when the
country again regained a small part of the trade and wealth lost during
the Spanish usurpation.
But if this is true of architecture, it is far more true of painting.
During the most flourishing period of Spanish painting, the age of
Velasquez and of Murillo, Portugal was, before 1640, a despised part of
the kingdom, treated as a conquered province, while after the rebellion
the long struggle, which lasted for twenty-eight years, was enough to
prevent any of the arts from flourishing. Besides, many good pictures
which once adorned the royal palaces of Portugal were carried off to
Madrid by Philip or his successors.
And yet there are scattered about the country not a few paintings of
considerable merit. Most of them have been terribly neglected, are very
dirty, or hang where they can scarcely be seen, while little is really
known about their painters.
From the time of Dom Joao I., whose daughter, Isabel, married Duke
Philip early in the fifteenth century, the two courts of Portugal and of
Burgundy had been closely united. Isabel sent an alabaster monument for
the tomb of her father's great friend and companion, the Holy Constable,
and one of bronze for that of her eldest brother; while as a member of
the embassy which came to demand her hand, was J. van Eyck himself.
However, if he painted anything in Portugal, it has now vanished.
There was also a great deal of trade with Antwerp where the Portuguese
merchants had a _lonja_ or exchange as early as 1386, and where a
factory was established in 1503. With the heads of this factory,
Francisco Brandao and Rodrigo Ruy de Almada, Albert Duerer was on
friendly terms, sending them etchings and paintings in return for wine
and southern rarities. He also drew the portrait of Damiao de Goes, Dom
Manoel's friend and chronicler.
It is natural enough, therefore, that Flanders should have had a great
influence on Portuguese painting, and indeed practically all the
pictures in the country are either by Netherland masters, painted at
home and imported, or painted in Portugal by artists who had been
attracted there by the fame of Dom Manoel's wealth and generosity, or
else by Portuguese pupils sent to study in Flanders.
During the seventeenth century all memory of these painters had
vanished. Looking at their work, the writers of that date were struck by
what seemed to them, in their natural ignorance of Flemish art, a
strange and peculiar style, and so attributed them all to a certain
half-mythical painter of Vizeu called Vasco, or Grao Vasco, who is first
mentioned in 1630.
Raczynski,[6] in his letters to the Berlin Academy, says that he had
found Grao Vasco's birth in a register of Vizeu; but Vasco is not an
uncommon name, and besides this child, Vasco Fernandes, was born in
1552--far too late to have painted any of the so-called Grao Vasco's
pictures.
It is of course possible that some of the pictures now at Vizeu were the
work of a man called Vasco, and one of those at Coimbra, in the sacristy
of Santa Cruz, is signed Velascus--which is only the Spanish form of
Vasco--so that the legendary personage may have been evolved from either
or both of these, for it is scarcely possible that they can have been
the same.
Turning now to some of the pictures themselves, there are thirteen
representing scenes from the life of the Virgin in the archbishop's
palace at Evora, which are said by Justi, a German critic, to be by
Gerhard David. Twelve of these are in a very bad state of preservation,
but one is still worthy of some admiration. In the centre sits the
Virgin with the Child on her knee: four angels are in the air above her
holding a wreath. On her right three angels are singing, and on her left
one plays an organ while another behind blows the bellows. Below there
are six other angels, three on each side with a lily between them,
playing, those on the right on a violin, a flute, and a zither, those on
the left on a harp, a triangle, and a guitar. Once part of the cathedral
reredos, it was taken down when the new Capella Mor was built in the
eighteenth century.
Another Netherlander who painted at Evora was Frey Carlos, who came to
Espinheiro close by in 1507. Several of his works are in the Museum at
Lisbon.[7]
When Dom Manoel was enriching the old Templar church at Thomar with
gilding and with statues of saints, he also caused large paintings to be
placed round the outer wall. Several still remain, but most have
perished, either during the French invasion or during the eleven years
after the expulsion of the monks in 1834 when the church stood open for
any one to go in and do what harm he liked. Some also, including the
'Raising of Lazarus,' the 'Entry into Jerusalem,' the 'Resurrection,'
and the 'Centurion,' are now in Lisbon. Four--the 'Nativity,' the 'Visit
of the Magi,' the 'Annunciation,' and a 'Virgin and Child'--are known to
have been given by Dom Manoel; twenty others, including the four now at
Lisbon, are spoken of by Raczynski in 1843,[8] and some at least of
these, as well as the angels holding the emblems of the Passion, who
stand above the small arches of the inner octagon, may have been painted
by Johannes Dralia of Bruges, who died and was buried at Thomar in
1504.[9]
Also at Thomar, but in the parish church of Sao Joao Baptista, are some
pictures ascribed by Justi to a pupil of Quentin Matsys. Now it is known
that a Portuguese called _Eduard_ became a pupil of Matsys in 1504, and
four years later a Vrejmeester of the guild. So perhaps they may be by
this Eduard or by some fellow-pupil.
The Jesus Church at Setubal, built by Justa Rodrigues, Dom Manoel's
nurse, has fifteen paintings in incongruous gilt frames and hung high up
on the north wall of the church, which also have something of the same
style.[10]
More interesting than these are two pictures in the sacristy of Santa
Cruz at Coimbra, an 'Ecce Homo' and the 'Day of Pentecost.' It is the
'Pentecost' which is signed Velascus, and in it the Apostles in an inner
room are seen through an arcade of three arches like a chapter-house
entrance. Perhaps once part of the great reredos, this picture has
suffered terribly from neglect; but it must once have been a fine work,
and the way in which the Apostles in the inner room are separated by the
arcade from the two spectators is particularly successful.
In Oporto there exists at least one good picture, 'The Fountain of
Mercy,' now in the board-room of the Misericordia,[11] but painted to be
the reredos of the chapel of Sao Thiago in the Se where the brotherhood
was founded by Dom Manoel in 1499. (Fig. 3.)
In the centre above, between St. John and the Virgin, stands a crucifix
from which blood flows down to fill a white marble well.
Below, on one side there kneels Dom Manoel with his six sons--Joao,
afterwards king; Luis, duke of Beja; Fernando, duke of Guarda; Affonso,
afterwards archbishop of Lisbon, with his cardinal's hat; Henrique,
later cardinal archbishop of Evora, and then king; and Duarte, duke of
Guimaraes and ancestor of the present ruling house of Braganza.
On the other side are Queen Dona Leonor,[12] granddaughter of Ferdinand
and Isabella, Dom Manoel's third wife[13] and her two stepdaughters,
Dona Isabel, the wife of Charles V. and mother of Philip II., who
through her claimed and won the throne of Portugal when his uncle, the
cardinal king, died in 1580, and Dona Beatriz, who married Charles III..
of Savoy.
The date of the picture is fixed as between 1518 when Dom Affonso, then
aged nine, received his cardinal's hat, and 1521 when Dom Manoel
died.[14]
Unfortunately the picture has been somewhat spoiled by restoration, but
it is undoubtedly a very fine piece of work--especially the portraits
below--and would be worthy of admiration anywhere, even in a country
much richer in works of art.
It has of course been attributed to Grao Vasco, but it is quite
different from either the Velascus pictures at Coimbra or the paintings
at Vizeu; besides, some of the beautifully painted flowers, such as the
columbines, which enrich the grass on which the royal persons kneel, are
not Portuguese flowers, so that it is much more likely to have been the
work of some one from Flanders.
Equally Flemish are the pictures at Vizeu, whether any of them be by the
Grao Vasco or not. Tradition has it that he was born at a mill not far
off, still called _Moinho do Pintor_, the _Painter's Mill_, and that Dom
Manoel sent him to study in Italy. Now, wherever the painter of the
Vizeu pictures had
[Illustration: FIG. 3.
THE FOUNTAIN OF MERCY.
MISERICORDIA, OPORTO.
_From a photograph by E. Biel & Co., Oporto._]
studied it can scarcely have been in Italy, as they are all surely much
nearer to the Flemish than to any Italian school.
There are still in the precincts of the cathedral some thirty-one
pictures of very varied merit, and not all by the same hand. Of these
there are fourteen in the chapter-house, a room opening off the upper
cloister. They are all scenes from the life of Our Lord from the
Annunciation to the day of Pentecost. Larger than any of these is a
damaged 'Crucifixion' in the Jesus Chapel under the chapter-house. The
painting is full, perhaps too full, of movement and of figures. Besides
the scenes usually portrayed in a picture of the Crucifixion, others are
shown in the background, Judas hanging himself on one side, and Joseph
of Arimathea and Nicodemus on the other, coming out from Jerusalem with
their spices. Lastly, in the sacristy there are twelve small paintings
of the Apostles and other saints of no great merit, and four large
pictures, 'St. Sebastian,' the 'Day of Pentecost,' where the room is
divided by three arches, with the Virgin and another saint in the
centre, and six of the Apostles on each side; the 'Baptism of Our Lord,'
and lastly 'St. Peter.' The first three are not very remarkable, but the
'St. Peter' is certainly one of the finest pictures in the country, and
is indeed worthy of ranking among the great pictures of the world.[15]
(Fig. 4.)
As in the 'Day of Pentecost' there is a triple division; St. Peter's
throne being in the middle with an arch on each side open to show
distant scenes. The throne seems to be of stone, with small boys and
griffins holding shields charged with the Cross Keys on the arms. On the
canopy two other shields supporting triple crowns flank an arch whose
classic ornaments and large shell are more Italian than is any other
part of the painting. On the throne sits St. Peter pontifically robed,
and with the triple crown on his head. His right hand is raised in
blessing, and in his left he holds one very long key while he keeps a
book open upon his knee.
The cope is of splendid gold brocade of a fine Gothic pattern, with
orfreys or borders richly embroidered with figures of saints, and is
fastened in front by a great square gold and jewelled morse. All the
draperies are very finely modelled and richly coloured, but finest of
all is St. Peter's face, solemn and stern and yet kindly, without any
of that pride and arrogance which would seem but natural to the wearer
of such vestments; it is, with its grey hair and short grey beard,
rather the face of the fisherman of Galilee than that of a Pope.
Through the arches to the right and left above a low wall are seen the
beginning and the end of his ministry. On the one side he is leaving his
boat and his nets to become a fisher of men, and on the other he kneels
before the vision of Our Lord, when fleeing from Rome he met Him at the
place now called 'Quo Vadis' on the Appian way, and so was turned back
to meet his martyrdom.
Fortunately this painting has suffered from no restoration, and is still
wonderfully clean, but the wood on which it is painted has split rather
badly in places, one large crack running from top to bottom just beyond
the throne on St. Peter's right.
This 'St. Peter,' then, is entirely Flemish in the painting of the
drapery and of the scenes behind; especially of the turreted Gothic
walls of Rome. The details of the throne may be classic, but French
renaissance forms were first introduced into the country at Belem in
1517, just the time when the cathedral here was being built by Bishop
Dom Diogo Ortiz de Vilhegas. This, and the other pictures in the
sacristy, were doubtless once parts of the great reredos, which would
not be put up till the church was quite finished, and so may not have
been painted till some time after 1520, or even later. Already in 1522
much renaissance work was being done at Coimbra, not far off, so it is
possible that the painter of these pictures may have adopted his classic
detail from what he may have seen there.
It is worth noting, too, that preserved in the sacristy at Vizeu there
is, or was,[16] a cope so like that worn by St. Peter, that the painting
must almost certainly have been copied from it.
We may therefore conclude that these pictures are the work of some one
who had indeed studied abroad, probably at Antwerp, but who worked at
home.
Not only to paint religious pictures and portraits did Flemish artists
come to Portugal. One at least, Antonio de
[Illustration: FIG. 4.
ST. PETER.
IN THE CATHEDRAL SACRISTY.
VIZEU.
]
Hollanda, was famous for his illuminations. He lived and worked at
Evora, and is said by his son Francisco to have been the first in
Portugal 'to make known a pleasing manner of painting in black and
white, superior to all processes known in other countries.'[17]
When the convent of Thomar was being finished by Dom Joao III., some
large books were in November 1533 sent on a mule to Antonio at Evora to
be illuminated. Two of these books were finished and paid for in
February 1535, when he received 63$795 or about L15. The books were
bound at Evora for 4$000 or sixteen shillings.
By the end of the next year a Psalter was finished which cost 54$605 or
L12, at the rate of 6$000, L1, 6s. 8d. for each of four large headings,
forty illuminated letters with vignettes at 2s. 2d. each, a hundred and
fifteen without vignettes at fivepence-halfpenny, two hundred and three
in red, gold, and blue at fourpence-farthing, eighty-four drawn in black
at twopence, and 2846 small letters at the beginning of each verse at
less than one farthing. Next March this Psalter was brought back to
Thomar on a mule whose hire was two shillings and twopence--a sum small
enough for a journey of well over a hundred miles,[18] but which may
help us the better to estimate the value of the money paid to
Antonio.[19]
CHURCH PLATE.
A very great part of the church plate of Portugal has long since
disappeared, for few chapters had the foresight to hide all that was
most valuable when Soult began his devastating march from the north, and
so he and his men were able to encumber their retreat with cart-loads of
the most beautiful gold and silver ornaments.
Yet a good deal has survived, either because it was hidden away as at
Guimaraes or at Coimbra--where it is said to have been only found
lately--or because, as at Evora, it lay apart from the course of this
famous plunderer.
The richest treasuries at the present day are those of Nossa Senhora da
Oliveira at Guimaraes, and of the Ses at Braga, at Coimbra, and at
Evora.
A silver-gilt chalice and a pastoral staff of the twelfth century in the
sacristy at Braga are among the oldest pieces of plate in the country.
The chalice is about five inches high. The cup, ornamented with animals
and leaves, stands on a plain base inscribed, 'In n[=m]e D[=m]i Menendus
Gundisaluis de Tuda domna sum.' It is called the chalice of Sao Giraldo,
and is supposed to have belonged to that saint, who as archbishop of
Braga baptized Affonso Henriques.
The staff of copper-gilt is in the form of a snake with a cross in its
mouth, and though almost certainly of the twelfth century is said to
have been found in the tomb of Santo Ovidio, the third archbishop of the
see.
Another very fine chalice of the same date is in the treasury at
Coimbra. Here the round cup is enriched by an arcade, under each arch of
which stands a saint, while on the base are leaves and medallions with
angels. It is inscribed, 'Geda Menendis me fecit in onore sci. Michaelis
e. MCLXXXX.', that is A.D. 1152.
It was no doubt given by Dom Miguel, who ruled the see from 1162 to 1176
and who spent so much on the old cathedral and on its furniture. For him
Master Ptolomeu made silver altar fronts, and the goldsmith Felix a jug
and basin for the service of the altar. He also had a gold chalice made
weighing 4 marks, probably the one made by Geda Menendis, and a gold
cross to enclose some pieces of the Holy Sepulchre and two pieces of the
True Cross.
At Guimaraes the chalice of Sao Torquato is of the thirteenth century.
The cup is quite plain and small, but on the wide-spreading base are
eight enamels of Our Lady and of seven of the Apostles.
The finest of all the objects in the Guimaraes treasury is the reredos,
taken by Dom Joao I. from the Spanish king's tent after the victory of
Aljubarrota, and one of the angels which once went with it.
The same king also gave to the small church of Sao Miguel a silver
processional cross, all embossed with oak leaves, and ending in
fleurs-de-lys, which rises from two superimposed octagons, covered with
Gothic ornament.
Another beautiful cross now at Coimbra has a 'Virgin and Child' in the
centre under a rich canopy, and enamels of the four Evangelists on the
arms, while the rest of the surface including the foliated ends is
covered with exquisitely pierced flowing tracery. (Fig. 5.)
Earlier are the treasures which once belonged the Queen St. Isabel who
died in 1327, and which are still preserved at Coimbra. These include a
beautiful and simple cross of agate and silver, a curious reliquary made
of a branch of coral with silver mountings, her staff as abbess of St.
Clara, shaped like the cross of an Eastern bishop, and with heads of
animals at the ends of the arms, and a small ark-shaped reliquary of
silver and coral now set on a high renaissance base.
But nearly all the surviving church plate dates from the time of Dom
Manoel or his son.
To Braga Archbishop Diogo de Souza gave a splendid silver-gilt chalice
in 1509. Here the cup is adorned above by six angels holding emblems of
the Passion, and below by six others holding bells. Above them runs an
inscription, _Hic est calix sanguinis mei novi et eter_. The stem is
entirely covered with most elaborate canopy work, with six Apostles in
niches, while on the base are five other Apostles in relief, the
archbishop's arms, and six pieces of enamel.
Very similar is a splendid chalice in the Misericordia at Oporto,
probably of about the same date, and two at Coimbra. In both of these
the cup is embossed with angels and leafage--in one the angels hold
bells--and the stem is covered with tabernacle work. On the base of the
one is a _pieta_ with mourning angels and other emblems of the Passion
in relief, while that of the other is enriched with filigree work. (Fig.
6.)
Another at Guimaraes given by Fernando Alvares is less well proportioned
and less beautiful.
So far the architectural details of the chalices mentioned have been
entirely national, but there is a custodia at Evora, whose interlacing
canopy work seems to betray the influence of the Netherlands. The base
of this custodia[20] or monstrance, in the shape of a chalice seems
later than the upper part, which is surmounted by a rounded canopy whose
hanging cusps and traceried panels strongly recall the Flemish work of
the great reredos in the old cathedral at Coimbra.
Even more Flemish are a pastoral staff made for Cardinal Henrique, son
of Dom Manoel and afterwards king, a monstrance or reliquary at
Coimbra,[21] and another at Guimaraes.[22]
Much splendid plate was also given to Santa Cruz at Coimbra by Dom
Manoel, but all--candlesticks, lamps, crosses and a monstrance--have
since vanished, sent to Goa in India when the canons in the eighteenth
century wanted something more fashionable.
Belem also possessed splendid treasures, among them a cross of silver
filigree and jewels which is still preserved.
Much filigree work is still done in the north, where the young women
invest their savings in great golden hearts or in beautiful earrings,
though now bunches of coloured flowers on huge lockets of coppery gold
are much more sought after.
Curiously, many of the most famous goldsmiths of the sixteenth century
were Jews. Among them was the Vicente family, a member of which made a
fine monstrance for Belem in 1505, and which, like other families, was
expelled from Coimbra to Guimaraes between the years 1532 and 1537, and
doubtless wrought some of the beautiful plate for which the treasury of
Nossa Senhora is famous.
The seventeenth century, besides smaller works, has left the great
silver tomb of the Holy Queen St. Isabel in the new church of Santa
Clara. Made by order of Bishop Dom Affonso de Castello Branco in 1614,
it weighs over 170 lbs., has at the sides and ends Corinthian columns,
leaving panels between them with beautifully chased framing, and a
sloping top.
Later and less worthy of notice are the coffins of the two first sainted
abbesses of the convent of Lorvao, near Coimbra, in which elaborate
acanthus scrolls in silver are laid over red velvet.
TILE WORK OR AZULEJOS.
The Moors occupied most of what is now Portugal for a considerable
length of time. The extreme north they held for rather less than two
hundred years, the extreme south for more than five hundred. This
occupation by a governing class, so different in religion, in race, and
in customs from
[Illustration: FIG. 5.
CROSS AT COIMBRA.]
[Illustration: FIG. 6.
CHALICE AT COIMBRA.]
[Illustration: FIG. 7.
MONSTRANCE AT COIMBRA.]
those they ruled, has naturally had a strong influence, not only on the
language of Portugal, but also on the art. Though there survive no
important Moorish buildings dating from before the re-conquest--for the
so-called mosque at Cintra is certainly a small Christian church--many
were built after it for Christians by Moorish workmen.
These, as well as the Arab ceilings, or those derived therefrom, will be
described later, but here must be mentioned the tilework, the most
universally distributed legacy of the Eastern people who once held the
land. There is scarcely a church, certainly scarcely one of any size or
importance which even in the far north has not some lining or dado of
tiles, while others are entirely covered with them from floor to ceiling
or vault.
The word _azulejo_ applied to these tiles is derived from the Arabic
_azzallaja_ or _azulaich_, meaning _smooth_, or else through the Arabic
from a Low Latin word _azuroticus_ used by a Gaulish writer of the fifth
century to describe mosaic[23] and not from the word _azul_ or _blue_.
At first each different piece or colour in a geometric pattern was cut
before firing to the shape required, and the many different pieces when
coloured and fired were put together so as to form a regular mosaic.
This method of making tiles, though soon given up in most places as
being too troublesome, is still employed at Tetuan in Morocco, where in
caves near the town the whole process may still be seen; for there the
mixing of the clay, the cutting out of the small pieces, the colouring
and the firing are still carried on in the old primitive and traditional
manner.[24]
Elsewhere, though similar designs long continued to be used in Spain and
Portugal, and are still used in Morocco, the tiles were all made square,
each tile usually forming one quarter of the pattern. In them the
pattern was formed by lines slightly raised above the surface of the
tile so that there was no danger during the firing of the colour running
beyond the place it was intended to occupy.
For a long time, indeed right up to the end of the fifteenth century,
scarcely anything but Moorish geometric patterns seem to have been used.
Then with the renaissance their place was taken by other patterns of
infinite variety; some have octagons with classic mouldings represented
in colour, surrounding radiating green and blue leaves;[25] some more
strictly classical are not unlike Italian patterns; some again are more
naturalistic, while in others the pattern, though not of the old
geometric form, is still Moorish in design.
Together with the older tiles of Moorish pattern plain tiles were often
made in which each separate tile, usually square, but at times
rhomboidal or oblong, was of one colour, and such tiles were often used
from quite early times down at least to the end of the seventeenth
century.
More restricted in use were the beautiful embossed tiles found in the
palace at Cintra, in which each has on it a raised green vine-leaf and
tendril, or more rarely a dark bunch of grapes.
Towards the middle of the sixteenth century the Moorish technique of
tilemaking, with its patterns marked off by raised edges, began to go
out of fashion, and instead the patterns were outlined in dark blue and
painted on to flat tiles. About the same time large pictures painted on
tiles came into use, at first, as in the work of Francisco de Mattos,
with scenes more or less in their natural colours, and later in the
second half of the seventeenth century, and in the beginning of the
eighteenth in blue on a white ground.
Towards the end of the eighteenth century blue seems to have usurped the
place of all other colours, and from that time, especially in or near
Oporto, tiles were used to mask all the exterior rubble walls of houses
and churches, even spires or bulbous domes being sometimes so covered.
Now in Oporto nearly all the houses are so covered, usually with
blue-and-white tiles, though on the more modern they may be embossed and
pale green or yellow, sometimes even brown. But all the tiles from the
beginning of the nineteenth century to the present day are marked by the
poverty of the colour and of the pattern, and still more by the hard
shiny glaze, which may be technically more perfect, but is infinitely
inferior in beauty to the duller and softer glaze of the previous
centuries.
When square tiles were used they were throughout singularly uniform in
size, being a little below or a little above five inches square. The
ground is always white with a slightly blueish tinge. In the earlier
tiles of Arab pattern the colours are blue, green, and brown; very
rarely, and that in some of the oldest tiles, the pattern may be in
black; yellow is scarcely ever seen. In those of Moorish technique but
Western pattern, the most usual colours are blue, green, yellow and,
more rarely, brown.
Later still in the flat tiles scarcely anything but blue and yellow are
used, though the blue and the yellow may be of two shades, light and
dark, golden and orange. Brown and green have almost disappeared, and,
as was said above, so did yellow at last, leaving nothing but blue and
white.
Although there are few buildings which do not possess some tiles, the
oldest, those of Moorish design, are rare, and, the best collection is
to be found in the old palace at Cintra, of which the greater part was
built by Dom Joao I. towards the end of the fourteenth and the beginning
of the fifteenth century.
Formerly all the piers of the old cathedral of Coimbra were covered with
such tiles, but they have lately been swept away, and only those left
which line the aisle walls.
At Cintra there are a few which it is supposed may have belonged to the
palace of the Walis, or perhaps it would be safer to say to the palace
before it was rebuilt by Dom Joao. These are found round a door leading
out of a small room, called from the mermaids on the ceiling the _Sala
das Sereias_. The pointed door is enclosed in a square frame by a band
of narrow dark and light tiles with white squares between, arranged in
checks, while in the spandrels is a very beautiful arabesque pattern in
black on a white ground.
Of slightly later date are the azulejos of the so-called _Sala dos
Arabes_, where the walls to a height of about six feet are lined with
blue, green, and white tiles, the green being square and the other
rhomboidal. Over the doors, which are pointed, a square framing is
carried up, with tiles of various patterns in the spandrels, and above
these frames, as round the whole walls, runs a very beautiful cresting
two tiles high. On the lower row are interlacing semicircles in high
relief forming foliated cusps and painted blue. In the spandrels formed
by the interlacing of the semicircles are three green leaves growing out
from a brown flower; in short the design is exactly like a Gothic
corbel table such as was used on Dom Joao's church at Batalha turned
upside down, and so probably dates from his time. On the second row of
tiles there are alternately a tall blue fleur-de-lys with a yellow
centre, and a lower bunch of leaves, three blue at the top and one
yellow on each side; the ground throughout is white. (Fig. 8.)
Also of Dom Joao's time are the tiles in the _Sala das Pegas_, where
they are of the regular Moorish pattern--blue, green and brown on a
white ground, and where four go to make up the pattern. The cresting of
green scrolls and vases is much later.
Judging from the cresting in the dining-room or _Sala de Jantar_, where,
except that the ground is brown relieved by large white stars, and that
the cusps are green and not blue, the design is exactly the same as in
the _Sala dos Arabes_, the tiles there must be at least as old as these
crestings; for though older tiles might be given a more modern cresting,
the reverse is hardly likely to occur, and if as old as the crestings
they may possibly belong to Dom Joao's time, or at least to the middle
of the fifteenth century. (Fig. 9.)
These dining-room tiles, and also those in the neighbouring _Sala das
Sereias_, are among the most beautiful in the palace. The ground is as
usual white, and on each is embossed a beautiful green vine-leaf with
branches and tendril. Tiles similar, but with a bunch of grapes added,
line part of the stair in the picturesque little _Pateo de Diana_ near
at hand, and form the top of the back of the tiled bench and throne in
the _Sala do Conselho_, once an open veranda. Most of this bench is
covered with tiles of Moorish design, but on the front each is stamped
with an armillary sphere in which the axis is yellow, the lines of the
equator and tropics green, and the rest blue. These one would certainly
take to be of Dom Manoel's time, for the armillary sphere was his
emblem, but they are said to be older.
Most of the floor tiles are of unglazed red, except some in the chapel,
which are supposed to have formed the paving of the original mosque, and
some in an upper room, worn smooth by the feet of Dom Affonso VI., who
was imprisoned there for many a year in the seventeenth century.
When Dom Manoel was making his great addition to the palace in the early
years of the sixteenth century he lined the walls of the _Sala dos
Cysnes_ with tiles forming a check of green
[Illustration: FIG. 8.
SALA DOS ARABES.
PALACE, CINTRA.
_From a photograph by L. Oram, Cintra._]
[Illustration: FIG. 9.
DINING-ROOM, OLD PALACE.
CINTRA.
_From a photograph by L. Oram, Cintra._]
and white. These are carried up over the doors and windows, and in
places have a curious cresting of green cones like Moorish battlements,
and of castles.
Much older are the tiles in the central _Pateo_, also green and white,
but forming a very curious pattern.
Of later tiles the palace also has some good examples, such as the
hunting scenes with which the walls of the _Sala dos Brazoes_ were
covered probably at the end of the seventeenth century, during the reign
of Dom Pedro II.
The palace at Cintra may possess the finest collection of tiles, Moorish
both in technique and in pattern, but it has few or none of the second
class where the technique remains Moorish but the design is Western. To
see such tiles in their greatest quantity and variety one must cross the
Tagus and visit the Quinta de Bacalhoa not far from Setubal.
There a country house had been built in the last quarter of the
fifteenth century by Dona Brites, the mother of Dom Manoel.[26] The
house, with melon-roofed corner turrets, simple square windows and two
loggias, has an almost classic appearance, and if built in its present
shape in the time of Dona Brites, must be one of the earliest examples
of the renaissance in the country. It has therefore been thought that
Bacalhoa may be the mysterious palace built for Dom Joao II. by Andrea
da Sansovino, which is mentioned by Vasari, but of which all trace has
been lost. However, it seems more likely that it owes its classic
windows to the younger Affonso de Albuquerque, son of the great Indian
Viceroy, who bought the property in 1528. The house occupies one corner
of a square garden enclosure, while opposite it is a large square tank
with a long pavilion at its southern side. A path runs along the
southern wall of the garden leading from the house to the tank, and all
the way along this wall are tiled seats and tubs for orange-trees. It is
on these tubs and seats that the greatest variety of tiles are found.
It would be quite impossible to give any detailed description of these
tiles, the patterns are so numerous and so varied. In some the pattern
is quite classical, in others it still shows traces of Moorish
influence, while in some again the design is entirely naturalistic. This
is especially the case in a pattern used in the lake pavilion, where
eight large green leaves are arranged pointing to one centre, and four
smaller brown ones to another, and in a still more beautiful pattern
used on an orange tub in the garden, where yellow and dark flowers,
green and blue leaves are arranged in a circle round eight beautiful
fruits shaped like golden pomegranates with blue seeds set among green
leaves and stalks.
But these thirty or more patterns do not exhaust the interest of the
Quinta. There are also some very fine tile pictures, especially one of
'Susanna and the Elders,' and a fragment of the 'Quarrel of the Lapithae
and Centaurs' in the pavilion overlooking the tank. 'Susanna and the
Elders' is particularly good, and is interesting in that on a small
temple in the background is the date 1565.[27] Rather later seem the
five river gods in the garden loggia of the house, for their strapwork
frames of blue and yellow can hardly be as early as 1565; besides, a
fragment with similar details has on it the letters TOS, no doubt the
end of the signature 'Francisco Mattos,' who also signed some beautiful
tiles in the church of Sao Roque at Lisbon in 1584.
It is known that the entrance to the convent of the Madre de Deus at
Lisbon was ornamented by Dom Manoel with some della Robbia reliefs, two
of which are now in the Museum.
On the west side of the tank at Bacalhoa is a wall nearly a hundred feet
long, and framed with tiles. In the centre the water flows into the tank
from a dolphin above which is an empty niche. There are two other empty
niches, one inscribed _Tempora labuntur more fluentis aquae_, and the
other _Vivite victuri moneo mors omnibus instat_. These niches stand
between four medallions of della Robbia ware, some eighteen inches
across. Two are heads of men and two of women, only one of each being
glazed. The glazed woman's head is white, with yellow hair, a sky-blue
veil, and a loose reddish garment all on a blue ground. All are
beautifully modelled and are surrounded by glazed wreaths of fruit and
leaves. These four must certainly have come from the della Robbia
factory in Florence, for they, and especially the surrounding wreaths,
are exactly like what may be seen so often in North Italy.
Much less good are six smaller medallions, four of which are much
destroyed, on the wall leading north from the tank to a pavilion named
the _Casa da India_, so called from the beautiful Indian hangings with
which its walls were covered by Albuquerque. In them the modelling is
less good and the wreaths are more conventional.
Lastly, between the tank and the house are twelve others, one under each
of the globes, which, flanked by obelisks, crown the wall. They are all
of the same size, but in some the head and the blue backing are not in
one place. The wreaths also are inferior even to those of the last six,
though the actual heads are rather better. They all represent famous men
of old, from Alexander the Great to Nero. Two are broken; that of
Augustus is signed with what may perhaps be read Donus Vilhelmus,
'Master William,' who unfortunately is otherwise unknown.
It seems impossible now to tell where these were made, but they were
certainly inspired by the four genuine Florentine medallions on the tank
wall, and if by a native artist are of great interest as showing how men
so skilled in making beautiful tiles could also copy the work of a great
Italian school with considerable success.
Of the third class of tiles, those where the patterns are merely painted
and not raised, there are few examples at Bacalhoa--except when some
restoration has been done--for this manner of tile-painting did not
become common till the next century, but there are a few with very good
patterns in the house itself, and close by, the walls of the church of
Sao Simao are covered with excellent examples. These were put up by the
heads of a brotherhood in 1648, and are almost exactly the same as those
in the church of Alvito; even the small saintly figures over the arches
occur in both. The pattern of Alvito is one of the finest, and is found
again at Santarem in the church of the Marvilla, where the lower tiles
are all of singular beauty and splendid colouring, blue and yellow on a
white ground. Other beautiful tiled interiors are those of the Matriz at
Caldas da Rainha, and at Caminha on the Minho. Without seeing these
tiled churches it is impossible to realise how beautiful they really
are, and how different are these tiles from all modern ones, whose hard
smooth glaze and mechanical perfection make them cold and anything but
pleasing. (Figs. 10 and 11, _frontispiece_.)
Besides the picture-tiles at Bacalhoa there are some very good examples
of similar work in the semicircular porch which surrounds the small
round chapel of Sant' Amaro at Alcantara close to Lisbon. The chapel
was built in 1549, and the tiles added about thirty years later. Here,
as in the Dominican nunnery at Elvas, and in some exquisite framings and
steps at Bacalhoa, the pattern and architectural details are spread all
over the tiles, often making a rich framing to a bishop or saint. Some
are not at all unlike Francisco Mattos' work in Sao Roque, which is also
well worthy of notice.
Of the latest pictorial tiles, the finest are perhaps those in the
church of Sao Joao Evangelista at Evora, which tell of the life of San
Lorenzo Giustiniani, Venetian Patriarch, and which are signed and dated
'Antoninus ab Oliva fecit 1711.'[28] But these blue picture-tiles are
almost the commonest of all, and were made and used up to the end of the
century.[29]
Now although some of the patterns used are found also in Spain, as at
Seville or at Valencia, and although tiles from Seville were used at
Thomar by Joao de Castilho, still it is certain that many were of home
manufacture.
As might be expected from the patterns and technique of the oldest
tiles, the first mentioned tilers are Moors.[30] Later there were as
many as thirteen tilemakers in Lisbon, and many were made in the
twenty-eight ovens of _louca de Veneza_, 'Venetian faience.' The tiles
used by Dom Manoel at Cintra came from Belem, while as for the picture
tiles the novices of the order of Sao Thiago at Palmella formed a school
famous for such work.
Indeed it may be said that tilework is the most characteristic feature
of Portuguese buildings, and that to it many a church, otherwise poor
and even mean, owes whatever interest or beauty it possesses. Without
tiles, rooms like the _Sala das Sereias_ or the _Sala dos Arabes_ would
be plain whitewashed featureless apartments, with them they have a charm
and a romance not easy to find anywhere but in the East.
CHAPTER I
THE EARLY BUILDINGS IN THE NORTH
Portugal, like all the other Christian kingdoms of the Peninsula, having
begun in the north, first as a county or march land subject to the king
of Galicia or of Leon, and later, since 1139, as an independent kingdom,
it is but natural to find nearly all the oldest buildings in those parts
of the country which, earliest freed from the Moslem dominion, formed
the original county. The province of Entre Minho-e-Douro has always been
held by the Portuguese to be the most beautiful part of their country,
and it would be difficult to find anywhere valleys more beautiful than
those of the Lima, the Cavado, or the Ave. Except the mountain range of
the Marao which divides this province from the wilder and drier
Tras-os-Montes, or the Gerez which separates the upper waters of the
Cavado and of the Lima, and at the same time forms part of the northern
frontier of Portugal, the hills are nowhere of great height. They are
all well covered with woods, mostly of pine, and wherever a piece of
tolerably level ground can be found they are cultivated with the care of
a garden. All along the valleys, and even high up the hillsides among
the huge granite boulders, there is a continuous succession of small
villages. Many of these, lying far from railway or highroad, can only be
reached by narrow and uneven paths, along which no carriage can pass
except the heavy creaking carts drawn by the beautiful large long-horned
oxen whose broad and splendidly carved yokes are so remarkable a feature
of the country lying between the Vouga and the Cavado.[31] In many of
these villages may still be seen churches built soon after the
expulsion of the Moors, and long before the establishment of the
Monarchy. Many of them originally belonged to some monastic body. Of
these the larger part have been altered and spoiled during the
seventeenth or eighteenth centuries, when, after the expulsion of the
Spaniards, the country began again to grow rich from trade with the
recovered colony of Brazil. Still enough remains to show that these old
romanesque churches differed in no very striking way from the general
romanesque introduced into Northern Spain from France, except that as a
rule they were smaller and ruder, and were but seldom vaulted.
That these early churches should be rude is not surprising. They are
built of hard grey granite. When they were built the land was still
liable to incursions, and raids from the south, such as the famous foray
of Almansor, who harried and burned the whole land not sparing even the
shrine of Santiago far north in Galicia. Their builders were still
little more than a race of hardy soldiers with no great skill in the
working of stone. Only towards the end of the twelfth century, long
after the border had been advanced beyond the Mondego and after Coimbra
had become the capital of a new county, did the greater security as well
as the very fine limestone of the lower Mondego valley make it possible
for churches to be built at Coimbra which show a marked advance in
construction as well as in elaboration of detail. Between the Mondego
and the Tagus there are only four or five churches which can be called
romanesque, and south of the Tagus only the cathedral of Evora, begun
about 1186 and consecrated some eighteen years later, is romanesque,
constructively at least, though all its arches have become pointed.
But to return north to Entre Minho-e-Douro, where the oldest and most
numerous romanesque churches exist and where three types may be seen. Of
these the simplest and probably the oldest is that of an aisleless nave
with simple square chancel. In the second the nave has one or two
aisles, and at the end of these aisles a semicircular apse, but with the
chancel still square: while in the third and latest the plan has been
further developed and enlarged, though even here the main chancel
generally still remains square.
[Sidenote: Villarinho.]
There yet exist, not far from Oporto, a considerable number of examples
of the first type, though several by their pointed doorways show that
they actually belong, in part at least, to the period of the Transition.
One of the best-preserved is the small church of Villarinho, not far
from Vizella in the valley of the Ave. Originally the church of a small
monastery, it has long been the parish church of a mountain hamlet, and
till it was lately whitewashed inside had scarcely been touched since
the day it was finished some time before the end of the twelfth century.
It consists of a rather high and narrow nave, a square-ended chancel,
and to the west a lower narthex nearly as large as the chancel. The
church is lit by very small windows which are indeed mere slits, and by
a small round opening in the gable above the narthex.[32] The narthex is
entered by a perfectly plain round-headed door with strong impost and
drip-mould, while above the corbels which once carried the roof of a
lean-to porch, a small circle enclosing a rude unglazed quatrefoil
serves as the only window. The door leading from the narthex to the nave
is much more elaborate; of four orders of mouldings, the two inner are
plain, the two outer have a big roll at the angle, and all are slightly
pointed. Except the outermost, which springs from square jambs, they all
stand on the good romanesque capitals of six shafts, four round and two
octagonal. (Fig. 12.)
[Sidenote: Sao Miguel, Guimaraes.]
Exactly similar in plan but without a narthex is the church of Sao
Miguel at Guimaraes, famous as being the church in which Affonso
Henriques, the first king of Portugal, was baptized in 1111. It claims
to have been the _Primaz_ or chief church of the whole archdiocese of
Braga. It is, like Villarinho, a small and very plain church built of
great blocks of granite, with a nave and square chancel lit by narrow
window slits. On the north side there are a plain square-headed doorway
and two bold round arches let into the outer wall over the graves of
some great men of these distant times. The drip-mould of one of these
arches is carved with a shallow zigzag ornament which is repeated on the
western door, a door whose slightly pointed arch may mean a rather later
date than the rest of the church. The wooden roof, as at Villarinho, has
a very gentle slope with eaves of considerable projection resting on
very large plain corbels, while other corbels lower down the wall seem
to show that at one time a veranda or cloister ran round three sides of
the building. The whole is even ruder and simpler than Villarinho, but
has a certain amount of dignity due to the great size of the stones of
which it is built and to the severe plainness of the walling.
[Sidenote: Cedo Feita, Oporto.]
Only one other church of this type need be described, and that because
it is the only one which is vaulted throughout. This is the small church
of Sao Martim de Cedo Feita or 'Early made' at Oporto itself. It is so
called because it claims, wrongly indeed, to be the very church which
Theodomir, king of the Suevi, who then occupied the north-west of the
Peninsula, hurriedly built in 559 A.D. This he did in order that, having
been converted from the Arian beliefs he shared with all the Germanic
invaders of the Empire, he might there be baptized into the Catholic
faith, and also that he might provide a suitable resting-place for some
relic of St. Martin of Tours which had been sent to him as a mark of
Orthodox approval. This story[33] is set forth in a long inscription on
the tympanum of the west door stating that it was put there in 1767, a
copy taken in 1557 from an old stone having then been found in the
archives of the church. As a matter of fact no part of the church can be
older than the twelfth century, and it has been much altered, probably
at the date when the inscription was cut. It is a small building, a
barrel-vaulted nave and chancel, with a door on the north side and a
larger one to the west now covered by a large porch. The six capitals of
this door are very like those at Villarinho, but the moulded arches are
round and not as there pointed.
Other churches of this type are Gandara and Boelhe near Penafiel, and
Eja not far off--a building of rather later date with a fine pointed
chancel arch elaborately carved with foliage--Sao Thiago d'Antas, near
Familicao, a slightly larger church with good capitals to the chancel
arch, a good south door and another later west door with traceried round
window above;
[Illustration: FIG. 12.
CHURCH AT VILLARINHO.]
[Illustration: FIG. 13.
VILLAR DE FRADES.
W. DOOR.]
and Sao Torquato, near Guimaraes, rather larger, having once had
transepts of which one survives, with square chancel and square chapels
to the east; one of the simplest of all having no ornament beyond the
corbel table and the small slitlike windows.
South of the Douro, but still built of granite, are a group of three or
four small churches at Trancoso. Another close to Guarda has a much
richer corbel table with a large ball ornament on the cornice and a
round window filled with curiously built-up tracery above the plain,
round-arched west door, while further south on the castle hill at Leiria
are the ruins of the small church of Sao Pedro built of fine limestone
with a good west door.
[Sidenote: Aguas Santas.]
Of the second and rather larger type there are fewer examples still
remaining, and of these perhaps the best is the church of Aguas Santas
some seven miles north-east of Oporto. Originally the church consisted
of a nave with rectangular chancel and a north aisle with an eastern
apse roofed with a semi-dome. Later a tower with battlemented top and
low square spire was built at the west end of the aisle, and some thirty
years ago another aisle was added on the south side. As in most of the
smaller churches the chancel is lower than the nave, leaving room above
its roof for a large round window, now filled up except for a small
traceried circle in the centre. The most highly decorated part is the
chancel, which like all the rest of the church has a good corbel table,
and about two-thirds of the way up a string course richly covered with
billet moulding. Interrupting this on the south side are two
round-headed windows, still small but much larger than the slits found
in the older churches. In each case, in a round-headed opening there
stand two small shafts with bases and elaborately carved capitals but
without any abaci, supporting a large roll moulding, and these are all
repeated inside at the inner face of a deep splay. In one of these
windows not only are the capitals covered with intertwined ribbon-work,
but each shaft is covered with interknotted circles enclosing flowers,
and there is a band of interlacing work round the head of the actual
window opening. Inside the church has been more altered. Formerly the
aisle was separated from the nave by two arches, but when the south
aisle was built the central pier was taken out and the two arches thrown
into one large and elliptical arch, but the capitals of the chancel
arch and the few others that remain are all well wrought and well
designed. The west door is a good simple example of the first pointed
period, with plain moulded arches and shafts which bear simple
French-looking capitals. Other churches of the same class are those of
Sao Christovao do Rio Mau not far from Villo do Conde, and Sao Pedro de
Rates, a little further up the Ave at the birthplace of the first bishop
of Braga and earliest martyr of Portugal. Sao Pedro is a little later,
as the aisle arches are all pointed, and is a small basilica of nave and
aisles with short transepts, chancel and eastern chapels.
[Sidenote: Villar de Frades.]
The two earliest examples of the third and most highly developed type,
the church of Villar de Frades and the cathedral of Braga, have
unfortunately both suffered so terribly, the one from destruction and
the other from rebuilding, that not much has been left to show what they
were originally like--barely enough to make it clear that they were much
more elaborately decorated, and that their carved work was much better
wrought than in any of the smaller churches already mentioned. A short
distance to the south of the river Cavado and about half-way between
Braga and Barcellos, in a well-watered and well-wooded region, there
existed from very early Christian times a monastery called Villar, and
later Villar de Frades. During the troubles and disorders which followed
the Moslem invasion, this Benedictine monastery had fallen into complete
decay and so remained till it was restored in 1070 by Godinho Viegas.
Although again deserted some centuries later and refounded in 1425 as
the mother house of a new order--the Loyos--the fifteenth-century church
was so built as to leave at least a part of the front of the old ruined
church standing between itself and the monastic building, as well as the
ruins of an apse behind. Probably this old west front was the last part
of Godinho's church to be built, but it is certainly more or less
contemporary with some portions of the cathedral of Braga.
At some period, which the legend leaves quite uncertain, one of the
monks of this monastery was one day in the choir at matins, when they
came to that Psalm where it is said that 'a thousand years in the sight
of God are but as yesterday when it is gone,' and the old monk wondered
greatly and began to think what that could mean. When matins were over
he remained praying as was his wont, and begged Our Lord to give him
some understanding of that verse. Then there appeared to him a little
bird which, singing most sweetly, flew this way and that, and so little
by little drew him towards a wood which grew near the monastery, and
there rested on a tree while the servant of God stood below to listen.
After what seemed to the monk a short time it took flight, to the great
sorrow of God's servant, who said, 'Bird of my Soul, where art thou gone
so soon?' He waited, and when he saw that it did not return he went back
to the monastery thinking it still that same morning on which he had
come out after matins. When he arrived he found the door, through which
he had come, built up and a new one opened in another place. The porter
asked who he was and what he wanted, and he answered, 'I am the
sacristan who a few hours ago went out, and now returning find all
changed.' He gave too the names of the Abbot and of the Prior, and
wondered much that the porter still would not let him in, and seemed not
to remember these names. At last he was led to the Abbot, but they did
not know one another, so that the good monk was all confused and amazed
at so strange an event. Then the Abbot, enlightened of God, sent for the
annals and histories of the order, found there the names the old man had
given, so making it clear that more than three hundred years had passed
since he had gone out. He told them all that had happened to him, was
received as a brother; and after praising God for the great marvel which
had befallen him, asked for the sacraments and soon passed from this
life in great peace.[34]
Whether the ruined west front of the older church be that which existed
when the bird flew out through the door or not, it is or has been of
very considerable beauty. Built, like everything else in the north, of
granite, all that is now left is a high wall of carefully wrought stone.
Below is a fine round arched door of considerable size, now roughly
blocked up. It has three square orders covered with carving and a plain
inner one. First is a wide drip-mould carved on the outer side with a
zigzag threefold ribbon, and on the inner with three rows of what looks
like a rude attempt to copy the classic bead-moulding; then the first
order, of thirteen voussoirs, each with the curious figure of a
strangely dressed man or with a distorted monster. This with the
drip-mould springs from a billet-moulded abacus resting on broad square
piers. Of the two inner carved orders, the outer is covered on both
faces with innumerable animals and birds, and the other with a delicate
pattern of interlacing bands. These two spring from strange square abaci
resting on the carved capitals of round shafts, two on each side. A few
feet above the door runs a billet-moulded string course, and two or
three feet higher another and slighter course. On this stands a large
window of two orders. Of these the outer covered with animals springs
from shafts and capitals very like those of the doorway, and the inner
has a billet-moulded edge and an almost Celtic ornament on the face. Now
whether Villar be older than the smaller buildings in the neighbourhood
or not, it is undoubtedly quite different not only in style but in
execution. It is not only much larger and higher, but it is better built
and the carving is finer and more carefully wrought. (Fig. 13.)
It is known that the great cathedral of Santiago in Galicia was begun in
1078, just about the time Villar must have been building, and Santiago
is an almost exact copy in granite of what the great abbey church of S.
Sernin at Toulouse was intended to be, so that it may be assumed that
Bernardo who built the cathedral was, if not a native of Toulouse, at
any rate very well acquainted with what was being done there. If, then,
a native of Languedoc was called in to plan so important a church in
Galicia, it is not unlikely that other foreigners were also employed in
the county of Portugal--at that time still a part of Galicia; and in
fact many churches in the south-west of what is now France have doorways
and windows whose general design is very like that at Villar de Frades,
if allowance be made for the difference of material, granite here, fine
limestone there, and for a comparative want of skill in the workmen.[35]
[Sidenote: Se, Braga.]
Probably these foreigners were not invited to Portugal for the sake of
the church of a remote abbey like Villar, but to work at the
metropolitan cathedral of Braga. The see of Braga is said to have been
founded by Sao Pedro de Rates, a disciple of St. James himself, and in
consequence of so distinguished an origin its archbishops claim the
primacy not only of all Portugal, but even of all the Spains, a claim
which is of course disputed by the patriarch of Lisbon, not to speak of
the archbishops of Toledo and of Tarragona. However that may be, the
cathedral of Braga is not now, and can never have been, quite worthy of
such high pretensions. It is now a church with a nave and aisles of six
bays, a transept with four square chapels to the east, a chancel
projecting beyond the chapels, and at the west two towers with the main
door between and a fine porch beyond.
Count Henry of Burgundy married Dona Theresa and received the earldom of
Portugal from his father-in-law, Alfonso VI. of Castile and Leon, in
1095, and he and his wife rebuilt the cathedral--where they now lie
buried--before the end of the century. By that time it may well have
become usual, if the churches were important, to call in a foreigner to
oversee its erection. Of the original building little now remains but
the plan and two doorways, the chancel having been rebuilt and the porch
added in the sixteenth, and the whole interior beplastered and bepainted
in the worst possible style in the seventeenth, century. Of the two
doors the western has been very like that at Villar. It has only two
orders left, of which the outer, though under a deep arch, has a
billet-moulded drip-mould, and its voussoirs each carved with a figure
on the outer and delicate flutings on the under side, while the inner
has on both faces animals and monsters which, better wrought than those
at Villar, are even more like so many in the south-west of France. The
other doorway, on the south side next the south-west tower, is far
better preserved. It has three shafts on each side, all with good
capitals and abaci, from which spring two carved and one plain arch. The
outer has a rich drip-mould covered with a curious triple arrangement of
circles, has flutings on the one face and a twisting ribbon on the
other, while the next has leaf flutings on both faces, and both a
roll-moulding on the angle. The inner order is quite plain, but the
tympanum has in the centre a circle enclosing a cross with expanding
arms, the spaces between the arms and the circle being pierced and the
whole surrounded with intertwining ribbons.
[Sidenote: Se, Oporto.]
Another foundation of Count Henry's was the cathedral of Oporto, which,
judging from its plan, must have been very like that of Braga, but it
has been so horribly transformed during the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries that nothing now remains of the original building but part of
the walls; for the fine western rose window must have been inserted
about the middle of the thirteenth century.
[Sidenote: Paco de Souza.]
Except the tragedy of Inez de Castro, there is no story in Portuguese
history more popular or more often represented in the engravings which
adorn a country inn dining-room than that of the surrender of Egas Moniz
to Alfonso VII. of Castile and Leon, when his pupil Affonso Henriques,
beginning to govern for himself, refused to fulfil the agreement[36]
whereby Egas had induced Alfonso to raise the siege of the castle of
Guimaraes. And it is the fact that the church of Sao Salvador at Paco de
Souza contains his tomb, which adds not a little to the interest of the
best-preserved of the churches of the third type. Egas Moniz died in
1144, and at least the eastern part of the church may have existed
before then. The chancel, where the tomb first stood, is rather long and
has as usual a square east end while the two flanking chapels are
apsidal. The rest of the church, which may be a little later, as all the
larger arches are pointed, consists of a nave and aisles of three bays,
a transept, and a later tower standing on the westernmost bay of the
south aisle. The constructive scheme of the inside is interesting,
though a modern boarded vault has done its best to hide what it formerly
was. The piers are cross-shaped with a big semicircular shaft on each
face, and a large roll-moulding on each angle which is continued up
above the abacus to form an outer order for both the aisle and the main
arches, for large arches are carried across the nave and aisles from
north to south as if it had been intended to roof the church with an
ordinary groined vault. However, it is clear that this was not really
the case, and indeed it could hardly have been so as practically no
vaults had yet been built in the country except a few small barrels.
Indeed, though later the Portuguese became very skilful at vaulting,
they were at no time fond of a nave with high groined vault upheld by
flying buttresses, and low aisles, for there seems to have been never
more than three or four in the country, one of which, the choir of
Lisbon Cathedral, fell in 1755. Instead of groined vaults, barrel vaults
continued to be used where a stone roof was wanted, even till the middle
of the fourteenth century and later, long after they had been given up
elsewhere, but usually a roof of wood was thought sufficient, sometimes
resting, as was formerly the case here, on transverse arches thrown
across the nave and aisles. This was the system adopted in the
cathedrals of Braga and of Oporto before they were altered, in this
church and in that of Pombeiro not far off, and in that of Bayona near
Vigo in Galicia.[37] (Fig. 14.)
All the details are extremely refined--almost Byzantine in their
delicacy--especially the capitals, and the abaci against the walls,
which are carried along as a beautiful string course from pier to pier.
The bases too are all carved, some with animals' heads and some with
small seated figures at the angles, while the faces of the square blocks
below are covered with beautiful leaf ornament. But the most curious
thing in the whole church is the tomb of Egas Moniz himself.[38] (Fig.
15.) Till the eighteenth century it stood in the middle of the chancel,
then it was cut in two and put half against the wall of the south aisle,
and half against that of the north. It has on it three bands of
ornament. Of these the lowest is a rudely carved chevron with what are
meant for leaves between, the next, a band of small figures including
Egas on his deathbed and what is supposed to be three of his children
riding side by side on an elongated horse with a camel-like head, and
that on the top, larger figures showing him starting on his fateful
journey to the court of Alfonso of Castile and Leon and parting from his
weeping wife. Although very rude,--all the horses except that of Egas
himself having most unhorselike heads and legs,--some of the figures are
carved with a certain not unpleasing vigour, especially that of a
spear-bearing attendant who marches with swinging skirts behind his
master's horse. Outside the most remarkable feature is the fine west
door, with its eight shafts, four on each side, some round and some
octagonal, the octagonal being enriched with an ornament like the
English dog-tooth, with their finely carved cubical capitals and rich
abaci, and with the four orders of mouldings, two of which are enriched
with ball ornament. Outside, instead of a drip-mould, runs a broad band
covered with plaited ribbon. On the tympanum, which rests on corbels
supported on one side by the head of an ox and on the other by that of a
man, are a large circle enclosing a modern inscription, and two smaller
circles in which are the symbols of the Sun and Moon upheld by curious
little half-figures. The two apses east of the transept are of the
pattern universal in Southern Europe, being divided into three equal
parts by half-shafts with capitals and crowned with an overhanging
corbel table.
[Sidenote: Pombeiro.]
The abbey church of Pombeiro, near Guimaraes, must once have been very
similar to Sao Salvador at Paco de Souza, except that the nave is a good
deal longer, and that it once had a large narthex, destroyed about a
hundred and fifty years ago by an abbot who wished to add to the west
front the two towers and square spires which still exist. So full was
this narthex of tombs that from the arms on them it had become a sort of
Heralds' College for the whole of the north of Portugal, but now only
two remain in the shallow renaissance porch between the towers. As at
Paco de Souza, the oldest part of the church is the east end, where the
two apses flanking the square chancel remain unaltered. They are divided
as usual by semicircular shafts bearing good romanesque capitals, and
crowned by a cornice of three small arches to each division, each cut
out of one stone, and resting on corbels and on the capitals. Of the
west front only the fine doorway is left unchanged; pointed in shape,
but romanesque in detail; having three of the five orders, carved one
with grotesque animals and two with leafage. Above the shallow porch is
a large round window with renaissance tracery, but retaining its
original framing of a round arch resting on tall shafts with romanesque
capitals. Everything else has been altered, the inside being covered
with elaborate rococo painted and gilt plaster-work, and the outside
disfigured by shapeless rococo windows.
Although some, and especially the last two of the buildings described
above belong, in part at least, to the time of transition from
romanesque to first pointed, and although the group of churches at
Coimbra are wholly romanesque, it would be better to have done with all
that can be ascribed to a period older than the beginning of the
Portuguese monarchy before following Affonso Henriques in his successful
efforts to extend his kingdom southwards to the Tagus.
Although Braga was the ecclesiastical capital of their fief,
[Illustration: FIG. 14.
CHURCH, PACO DE SOUZA.
NAVE.]
[Illustration: FIG. 15.
PACO DE SOUZA.
TOMB OF EGAS MONIZ.]
[Sidenote: Guimaraes, Castle.]
Count Henry and his wife lived usually at Guimaraes, a small town some
fifteen miles to the south. Towards the beginning of the tenth century
there died D. Hermengildo Goncalves Mendes, count of Tuy and Porto, who
by his will left Vimaranes, as it was then called, to his widow,
Mumadona. About 927 she there founded a monastery and built a castle for
its defence, and this castle, which had twice suffered from Moslem
invaders, was restored or rebuilt by Count Henry, and there in 1111 was
born his son Affonso Henriques, who was later to become the first king
of the new and independent kingdom of Portugal. Henry died soon after,
in 1114, at Astorga, perhaps poisoned by his sister-in-law, Urraca,
queen of Castile and Leon, and for several years his widow governed his
lands as guardian for their son.
Thirteen years after Count Henry's death, in 1127, the castle was the
scene of the famous submission of Egas Moniz to the Spanish king, and
this, together with the fact that Affonso Henriques was born there, has
given it a place in the romantic history of Portugal which is rather
higher than what would seem due to a not very important building. The
castle stands to the north of the town on a height which commands all
the surrounding country. Its walls, defended at intervals by square
towers, are built among and on the top of enormous granite boulders, and
enclose an irregular space in which stands the keep. The inhabited part
of the castle ran along the north-western wall where it stood highest
above the land below, but it has mostly perished, leaving only a few
windows which are too large to date from the beginning of the twelfth
century. The square keep stands within a few feet of the western wall,
rises high above it, and was reached by a drawbridge from the walk on
the top of the castle walls. Its wooden floors are gone, its windows are
mere slits, and like the rest of the castle it owes its distinctive
appearance to the battlements which crown the whole building, and whose
merlons are plain blocks of stone brought to a sharp point at the top.
This feature, which is found in all the oldest Portuguese castles such
as that of Almourol on an island in the Tagus near Abrantes, and even on
some churches such as the old cathedral at Coimbra and the later church
at Leca de Balio, is one of the most distinct legacies left by the
Moors: here the front of each merlon is perpendicular to the top, but
more usually it is finished in a small sharp pyramid.
[Sidenote: Church.]
The other foundation of Mumadona, the monastery of Nossa Senhora and Sao
Salvador in the town of Guimaraes, had since her day twice suffered
destruction at the hands of the Moors, once in 967 when the castle was
taken by Al-Coraxi, emir of Seville, and thirty years later when
Almansor[39] in 998 swept northwards towards Galicia, sacking and
burning as he went. At the time when Count Henry and Dona Teresa were
living in the castle, the double Benedictine monastery for men and women
had fallen into decay, and in 1109 Count Henry got a Papal Bull changing
the foundation into a royal collegiate church under a Dom Prior, and at
once began to rebuild it, a restoration which was not finished till
1172. Since then the church has been wholly and the cloisters partly
rebuilt by Joao I. at the end of the fourteenth century, but some arches
of the cloister and the entrance to the chapter-house may very likely
date from Count Henry's time. These cloisters occupy a very unusual
position. Starting from the north transept they run round the back of
the chancel, along the south side of the church outside the transept,
and finally join the church again near the west front. The large round
arches have chamfered edges; the columns are monoliths of granite about
eighteen inches thick; the bases and the abaci all romanesque in form,
though many of the capitals, as can be seen from their shape and
carving, are of the fourteenth or even fifteenth century, showing how
Juan Garcia de Toledo, who rebuilt the church for Dom Joao I., tried, in
restoring the cloister, to copy the already existing features and as
usual betrayed the real date by his later details. A few of the old
capitals still remain, and are of good romanesque form such as may be
seen in any part of southern France or in Spain.[40] To the
chapter-house, a plain oblong room with a panelled wood ceiling, there
leads, from the east cloister walk, an unaltered archway, flanked as
usual by two openings, one on either side. The doorway arch is plain,
slightly horseshoe in shape, and is carried by short strong half-columns
whose capitals are elaborately carved with animals and twisting
branches, the animals, as is often the case,
[Illustration: FIG. 16.
DOOR OF CHAPTER HOUSE, N.S. DA OLIVEIRA.
GUIMARAES.]
[Illustration: FIG. 17.
CLOISTER.
LECA DO BALIO.]
being set back to back at the angles so that one head does duty for each
pair. Above is a large hollow hood-mould exactly similar to those which
enclose the side windows. The two lights of these windows are separated
by short coupled shafts whose capitals, derived from the Corinthian or
Composite, have stiff leaves covering the change from the round to the
square, and between them broad tendrils which end in very carefully cut
volutes at the angles. The heads themselves are markedly horseshoe in
shape, which at first sight suggests some Moorish influence, but in
everything else the details are so thoroughly Western, and by 1109 such
a long time, over a hundred years, had passed since the Moors had been
permanently expelled from that part of the country, that it were better
to see in these horseshoes an unskilled attempt at stilting, rather than
the work of some one familiar with Eastern forms. (Fig. 16.)