LATER GOTHIC
During the last ten or fifteen years of the fifteenth century there was
great activity in building throughout almost the whole country, but it
now becomes almost impossible to take the different buildings in
chronological order, because at this time so many different schools
began to struggle for supremacy. There was first the Gothic school
which, though increasing in elaboration of detail, went on in some
places almost uninfluenced by any breath of the renaissance, as for
instance in the porch and chancel of Braga Cathedral, not built till
about 1532. Elsewhere this Gothic was affected partly by Spanish and
partly by Moorish influence, and gradually grew into that most curious
and characteristic of styles, commonly called Manoelino, from Dom Manoel
under whom Portugal reached the summit of its prosperity. In other
places, again, Gothic forms and renaissance details came gradually to be
used together, as at Belem.
To take then first those buildings in which Gothic detail was but little
influenced by the approaching renaissance.
[Sidenote: Graca, Santarem.]
One of the earliest of these is the west front, added towards the end of
the fifteenth century to that Augustinian church of the Graca at
Santarem whose roof the Devil knocked down in 1548. Here the ends of the
side aisles are, now at any rate, quite plain, but in the centre there
is a very elaborate doorway with a large rose-window above. It is easy
to see that this doorway has not been uninfluenced by Batalha. From
well-moulded jambs, each of which has four shafts, there springs a large
pointed arch, richly fringed with cusping on its inner side. Two of its
many mouldings are enriched with smaller cuspings, and one, the
outermost, with a line of wavy tracery, while the whole ends in a
crocketed ogee. Above the arch is a strip of shallow panelling,
enclosed, as is the whole doorway, in a square moulded frame. May it
not be that this square frame is due to the almost universal Moorish
habit of setting an archway in a square frame, as may be seen at Cordoba
and in the palace windows at Cintra? The rest of the gable is perfectly
plain but for the round window, filled with elaborate spiral flowing
tracery. Here, though the details are more French than national, there
is a good example of the excellent result so often reached by later
Portuguese--and Spanish--builders, who concentrated all their elaborate
ornament on one part of the building while leaving the rest absolutely
plain--often as here plastered and whitewashed.
[Sidenote: Sao Joao Baptista, Thomar.]
Not long after this front was built, Dom Manoel in 1494 began a new
parish church at Thomar, that of Sao Joao Baptista. The plan of this
church is that which has already become so familiar: a nave and aisles
with wooden roof and vaulted chancel and chapels to the east, with here,
the addition of a tower and spire to the north of the west front. The
inside calls for little notice: the arches are pointed, and the capitals
carved with not very good foliage, but the west front is far more
interesting. As at the Graca it is plastered and whitewashed, but ends
not in a gable but in a straight line of cresting like Batalha, though
here there is no flat terrace behind, but a sloping tile roof. At the
bottom is a large ogee doorway whose tympanum is pierced with tracery
and whose mouldings are covered with most beautiful and deeply undercut
foliage. The outside of the arch is crocketed, and ends in a tall finial
thrust through the horizontal and crested moulding which, as at the
Graca, sets the whole in a square frame. There are also doorways in the
same style half-way along the north and south sides of the church. The
only other openings on the west front are a plain untraceried circle
above the door, and a simple ogee-headed window at the end of each
aisle.
The tower, which is not whitewashed, rises as a plain unadorned square
to a little above the aisle roof, then turns to an octagon with, at the
top, a plain belfry window on each face. Above these runs a corbelled
gallery within which springs an octagonal spire cut into three by two
bands of ornament, and ending in a large armillary sphere, that emblem
of all the discoveries made during his reign, which Dom Manoel put on to
every building with which he had anything to do.
Inside the chapels are as usual overloaded with huge reredoses of
heavily carved and gilt wood, but the original pulpit still survives, a
most beautiful example of the finest late Gothic carving. It consists of
four sides of an octagon, and stands on ribs which curve outwards from a
central shaft. Round the bottom runs a band of foliage most marvellously
undercut, above this are panels separated the one from the other by
slender pinnacles, and the whole ends in a cornice even more delicately
carved than is the base. At the top of each panel is some intricate
tabernacle work, below which there is on one the Cross of the Order of
Christ, on another the royal arms, with a coronet above which stands out
quite clear of the panel, and on a third there has been the armillary
sphere, now unfortunately quite broken off. But even more interesting
than this pulpit itself is the comparison between its details and those
of the nave or Coro added about the same time to the Templar church on
the hill behind. Here all is purely Gothic, there there is a mixture of
Gothic and renaissance details, and towards the west front an exuberance
of carving which cannot be called either Gothic or anything else, so
strange and unusual is it.
[Sidenote: Villa do Conde.]
Another church of almost exactly the same date is that of Sao Joao
Baptista, the Matriz of Villa do Conde. The plan shows a nave and aisles
of five bays, large transeptal chapels, and an apsidal chancel
projecting beyond the two square chapels by which it is flanked. As
usual the nave and aisles have a wooden roof, only the chancel and
chapels being vaulted. There is also a later tower at the west end of
the north aisle, and a choir gallery across the west end of the church.
Throughout the original windows are very narrow and round-headed, and
there is in the north-western bay a pointed door, differing only from
those of about a hundred years earlier in having twisted shafts. One
curious feature is the parapet of the central aisle, which is like a row
of small classical pedestals, each bearing a stumpy obelisk. By far the
finest feature of the outside is the great west door. On each side are
clusters of square pinnacles ending in square crocketed spirelets, and
running up to a horizontal moulding which, as so often, gives the whole
design a rectangular form. Within comes the doorway itself; a large
trefoiled arch of many mouldings of which the outermost, richly
crocketed, turns up as an ogee, to pierce the horizontal line above with
its finial. Every moulding is filled with foliage, most elaborately and
finely cut, considering that it is worked in granite. Across the
trefoil at its springing there runs a horizontal moulding resting on the
flat elliptical arch of the door itself. On the tympanum is a figure of
St. John under a very elaborate canopy with, on his right, a queer
carving of a naked man, and on his left a dragon. The space between the
arch and the top moulding is filled with intricate but shallow
panelling, among which, between two armillary spheres, are set, on the
right, a blank shield crowned--probably prepared for the royal arms--and
on the left the town arms--a galley with all sails set. Lastly, as a
cresting to the horizontal moulding, there is a row of urnlike objects,
the only renaissance features about the whole door. (Fig. 41.)
[Illustration: SAO JOAO BAPTISTA VILLA DO CONDE
S^TA MARIA DOS ANJOS CAMINHA]
Inside, all the piers are octagonal with a slender shaft at each angle;
these shafts alone having small capitals, while their bases stand on,
and interpenetrate with, the base of the whole pier. All the arches are
round--as are those leading to the chancel and transept chapels--and are
moulded exactly as are the piers. All the vaults have a network of
well-moulded ribs.
The tower has been added some fifty years later and is very
picturesque. It is of four stories: of these the lowest has rusticated
masonry; the second, on its western face, a square-headed window opening
beneath a small curly and broken pediment on to a balcony with very fine
balusters all upheld by three large corbels. The third story has only a
clock, and the fourth two plain round-headed belfry windows on each
face. The whole--above a shallow cornice which is no bigger than the
mouldings dividing the different stories--ends in a low stone dome, with
a bell gable in front, square below, and arched above, holding two
bells.
[Sidenote: Azurara.]
Scarcely a mile away, across the river Ave, lies Azurara, which was made
a separate parish in 1457 and whose church was built by Dom Manoel in
1498.
In plan it is almost exactly the same as Villa do Conde, except that
there are no transept chapels nor any flanking the chancel. Outside
almost the only difference lies in the parapet which is of the usual
shape with regular merlons; and in the west door which is an interesting
example of the change to the early renaissance. The door itself is
round-headed, and has Gothic mouldings separated by a broad band covered
with shallow renaissance carving. On each side are twisted shafts which
run up some way above the door to a sort of horizontal entablature,
whose frieze is well carved, and which is cut into by a curious ogee
moulding springing from the door arch. Above this entablature the shafts
are carried up square for some way, and end in Gothic pinnacles. Between
them is a niche surmounted by a large half-Gothic canopy and united to
the side shafts by a broken and twisted treelike moulding. What adds to
the strangeness of this door is that the blank spaces are plastered and
whitewashed, while all the rest of the church is of grey granite. Higher
up there is a round window--heavily moulded--and the whole gable ends in
a queer little round pediment set between two armillary spheres.
Inside the piers are eight-sided with octagonal bases and caps, and with
a band of ornament half-way up the shaft. The arches are simply
chamfered but are each crossed by three carved voussoirs.
The tower is exactly like that at Villa do Conde except that the bottom
story is not rusticated, and that instead of a dome there is an
octagonal spire covered with yellow and white tiles.
[Illustration: FIG. 41.
VILLA DO CONDE. SAO JOAO BAPTISTA.]
[Sidenote: Caminha.]
As at Azurara, the parish church of Santa Maria dos Anjos at Caminha is
in plan very like the Matriz at Villa do Conde. Caminha lies on the
Portuguese side of the estuary of the Minho, close to its mouth, and the
church was begun in 1488, but was not finished till the next century,
the tower indeed not being built till 1556. Like the others, the plan
shows a nave and rather narrow aisles of five bays, and two square
vaulted chapels with an apsidal chancel between to the east. Three large
vaulted chapels and the tower have been added, opening from the north
aisle. Probably the oldest part is the chancel with its flanking
chapels, which are very much more elaborate than any portion of the
churches already described. There are at the angles deep square
buttresses which end in groups of square spire-capped pinnacles all
elaborately crocketed, and not at all unlike those at Batalha. Between
these, in the chancel are narrow round-headed windows, whose mouldings
are enriched with large four-leaved flowers, and on all the walls from
buttress to buttress there runs a rich projecting cornice crowned by a
wonderfully pierced and crested parapet; also not unlike those at
Batalha, but more wonderful in that it is made of granite instead of
fine limestone. The rest of the outside is much plainer, except for the
two doorways, and two tall buttresses at the west end. These two
doorways--which are among the most interesting in the country--must be a
good deal later than the rest of the church, indeed could not have been
designed till after the work of that foreign school of renaissance
carvers at Coimbra had become well known, and so really belong to a
later chapter.
Inside the columns are round, with caps and bases partly round and
partly eight-sided, the hollow octagons interpenetrating with the
circular mouldings. The arches of the arcade are also round, though
those of the chancel and eastern chapels are pointed. Attached to one of
the piers is a small eight-sided pulpit, at whose angles are Gothic
pinnacles, but whose sides and base are covered with cherubs' heads,
vases, and foliage of early renaissance.
But the chief glory of the interior are the splendid tiles with which
its walls are entirely covered, and still more the wonderful wooden
roof, one of the finest examples of Moorish carpentry to be found
anywhere, and which, like the doorways, can now only be merely
mentioned.
The tower, added by Diogo Eannes in 1556, is quite plain with one
belfry opening in each face close to the top and just below the low
parapet which, resting on corbels, ends in a row of curious half-classic
battlements.[90]
[Sidenote: Funchal.]
This plan was not confined only to parish churches, for about 1514 we
find it used by Dom Manoel at Funchal for the cathedral of the newly
founded diocese of Madeira. The only difference of importance is that
there is a well-developed transept entered by arches of the same height
as that of the chancel. Here the piers are clustered, and with rather
poorly carved capitals, the arches pointed and moulded, but rather thin.
As in the other churches of this date, the round-headed clerestory
windows come over the piers, not over the arches. The chancel, which is
rather deeper than usual, is entered by a wide foliated arch, and like
the apsidal chapels is vaulted. As at Caminha, the nave roof is of
Moorish design, but of even greater interest are the reredos and the
choir-stalls. This reredos is three divisions in height and five in
width--each division, except the two lower in the centre where there is
a niche for the image of the Virgin, containing a large picture.
The divisions are separated perpendicularly by a series of Gothic
pinnacles, and horizontally by a band of Gothic tabernacle work at the
bottom, and above by beautifully carved early renaissance friezes. The
whole ends in a projecting canopy, divided into five bays, each bay
enriched with vaulting ribs, and in front with very delicately carved
hanging tracery. Above the horizontal cornice is a most elaborate
cresting of interlacing trefoils and leaves having in the middle the
royal arms with on each side an armillary sphere. Some of the detail of
the cresting is not all unlike that of the great reredos in the Se Velha
at Coimbra, and like it has a Flemish look, so that it may have been
made perhaps, if not by Master Vlimer, who finished his work at Coimbra
in 1508, at any rate by one of his pupils. The stalls, which at the back
are separated by Gothic pilasters and pinnacles, have also a continuous
canopy, and a high and splendid cresting, which though Gothic in general
appearance, is quite renaissance in detail.
Outside, the smaller eastern chapels have an elaborate cresting, and
tall twisted pinnacles. The large plain tower which rises east of the
north transept has a top crowned with battlements, within which stands a
square tile-covered spire.
[Sidenote: Se, Lamego.]
Before going on to discuss the long-continued influence of the Moors,
three buildings in which Gothic finally came to an end must be
discussed. These are the west front of Lamego, the cathedral of Vizeu,
and the porch and chancel of the Se at Braga. Except for its romanesque
tower and its west front the cathedral of Lamego has been entirely
rebuilt; and of the west front only the lower part remains uninjured.
This front is divided by rather elaborate buttresses into three nearly
equal parts--for the side aisles are nearly as wide as the central. In
each of these is a large pointed doorway, that in the centre being at
once wider and considerably higher than those of the aisles. The central
door has six moulded shafts on either side, all with elaborately carved
capitals and with deeply undercut foliage in the hollows between, this
foliage being carried round the whole arch between the mouldings. Above
the top of the arch runs a band of flat, early renaissance carving with
a rich Gothic cresting above.
The side-doors are exactly similar, except that they have fewer shafts,
four instead of six, and that in the hollows between the mouldings the
carving is early renaissance in character and is also flatter than in
the central door. Above runs the same band of carving--but lower
down--and a similar but simpler cresting.
[Sidenote: Se, Vizeu.]
Unlike Lamego, while the cathedral of Vizeu has been but little altered
within, scarcely any of the original work is to be seen outside. The
present cathedral was built by Bishop Dom Diego Ortiz de Vilhegas about
the year 1513, and his arms as well as those of Dom Manoel and of two of
his sons are found on the vault. The church is not large, having a nave
and aisles of four bays measuring about 105 feet by 62; square transept
chapels, and a seventeenth-century chancel with flanking chapels. To the
west are two towers, built between the years 1641 and 1671, and on the
south a very fine renaissance cloister of two stories, the lower having
been built, it is said, in 1524,[91] and the upper about 1730. A choir
gallery too, with an elaborate Gothic vault below and a fine renaissance
balustrade, crosses the whole west end and extends over the porch
between the two western towers. But if the cathedral in its plan follows
the ordinary type, in design and in construction it is quite unique.
Instead of there being a wooden roof as is usual in churches of this
period, the whole is vaulted, and that too in a very unusual and
original manner. Throughout the piers consist of twelve rounded shafts
set together. Of these the five towards the central aisle are several
feet higher than the other seven from which spring the aisle arches as
well as the ribs of the aisle vault. Consequently the vault of the
central aisle is considerably lower at the sides than it is in the
middle, and in this ingenious way its thrust is counteracted by the
vaults of the side aisles; and at the same time these side vaults are
not highly stilted as they would of necessity have been, had the three
aisles been of exactly the same height. All the ribs are of considerable
projection and well moulded, and of all, except the diagonal ribs, the
lowest moulding is twisted like a rope. This rope-moulding is repeated
on all the ridge ribs, and in each it is tied in a knot half-way along,
a knot which is so much admired that the whole vault is called 'a
abobada dos nos' or vault of the knots.
The capitals are more curious than beautiful; the lower have clumsy,
early-looking foliage and a large and curious abacus. First each capital
has a square abacus of some depth, then comes a large flat circle, one
for each three caps, and at the top a star-shaped moulding of hollow
curves, the points projecting beyond the middle of the square abaci
below. The higher capitals are better. They are carved with more
elaborate foliage and gilt, and the abaci follow more exactly the line
of the caps below and are carved and gilded in the same way. (Fig. 42.)
Perhaps, however, the chief interest of the cathedral is found in the
sacristy, a fine large room opening from the north transept chapel. On
its tiled walls there hang several large and some smaller paintings, of
which the finest is that of St. Peter. Other pictures are found in the
chapter-house, and a fine one of the crucifixion in the Jesus Chapel
below it; but this is not the place to enter into the very difficult
question of Portuguese painting, a question on which popular tradition
throws only a misleading light by attributing everything to a more or
less mythical painter, Grao Vasco, and on which all authorities differ,
agreeing only in considering this St. Peter one of the finest paintings
in the country.
[Sidenote: Se, Braga.]
Perhaps the chancel of the cathedral at Braga ought rather
[Illustration: FIG. 42.
SE, VIZEU.]
[Illustration: FIG. 43.
BRAGA. W. PORCH OF CATHEDRAL.]
to be left to a chapter dealing with what is usually called the
Manoelino style--that strange last development of Gothic which is found
only in Portugal--but it is in many respects so like the choir chapels
of the church at Caminha, and has so little of the usual Manoelino
peculiarities, that it were better to describe it now. Whatever may be
thought of the chancel, there is no doubt about the large western porch,
which is quite free of any Manoelino fantasies.
Both porch and chancel were built by Archbishop Dom Diego de Souza about
the year 1530--a most remarkable date when the purely Gothic work here
is compared with buildings further south, where Manoelino had already
been succeeded by various forms of the classic renaissance. The porch
stretches right across the west end of the church, and is of three bays.
That in the centre, considerably wider than those at the side, is
entered from the west by a round-headed arch, while the arches of the
others are pointed. The bays are separated by buttresses of considerable
projection, and all the arches, which have good late mouldings, are
enriched with a fine feathering of cusps, which stands out well against
the dark interior. Unfortunately the original parapet is gone, only the
elaborate canopies of the niches, of which there are two to each bay,
rise above the level of the flat paved roof. Inside there is a good
vault with many well-moulded ribs, but the finest feature of it all is
the wrought-iron railing which crosses each opening. This, almost the
only piece of wrought-iron work worthy of notice in the whole country,
is very like contemporary screens in Spain. It is made of upright bars,
some larger, twisted from top to bottom, some smaller twisted at the
top, and plain below, alternating with others plain above and twisted
below. At the top runs a frieze of most elaborate hammered and pierced
work--early renaissance in detail in the centre, Gothic in the side
arches, above which comes in the centre a wonderful cresting. In the
middle, over the gate which rises as high as the top of the cresting, is
a large trefoil made of a flat hammered band intertwined with a similar
band after the manner of a Manoelino doorway.[92] (Fig. 43.)
Of the chancel little has been left inside but the vault and the tombs
of Dona Theresa (the first independent ruler of Portugal) and of her
husband Count Henry of Burgundy--very poor work of about the same date
as the chancel. The outside, however, has been unaltered. Below it is
square in plan, becoming at about twenty feet from the ground a
half-octagon having the eastern a good deal wider than the diagonal
sides. On the angles of the lower square stand tall clustered
buttresses, rising independently of the wall as far as the projecting
cornice, across which their highest pinnacles cut, and united to the
chancel at about a third of the height, by small but elaborate flying
buttresses. On the eastern face there is a simple pointed window, and
there is nothing else to relieve the perfectly plain walls below except
two string courses, and the elaborate side buttresses with their tall
pinnacles and twisted shafts. But if the walling is plain the cornice is
most elaborate. It is of great depth and of considerable projection, the
hollows of the mouldings being filled with square flowers below and
intricate carving above. On this stands a high parapet of traceried
quatrefoils, bearing a horizontal moulding from which springs an
elaborate cresting; all being almost exactly like the cornice and
parapet at Caminha, but larger and richer, and like it, a marvellous
example of carving in granite. At the angles are tall pinnacles, and the
pinnacles of the corner buttresses are united to the parapet by a
curious contorted moulding.
[Sidenote: Conceicao, Braga.]
Opposite the east end of the cathedral there stands a small tower built
in 1512 by Archdeacon Joao de Coimbra as a chapel. It is of two stories,
with a vaulted chapel below and a belfrey above, lit by round-headed
windows, only one of which retains its tracery. Just above the string
which divides the two stories are statues[93] under canopies, one
projecting on a corbel from each corner, and one from the middle, while
above a cornice, on which stand short pinnacles, six to each side, the
tower ends in a low square tile roof. The chapel on the ground floor is
entered by a porch, whose flat lintel rests on moulded piers at the
angles and on two tall round columns in the centre, while its three
openings are filled with plain iron screens, the upper part of which
blossoms out into large iron flowers and leaves. Inside there is on the
east wall a reredos of early renaissance date, and on the south a large
half-classical arch flanked by pilasters under which there is a
life-size group of the Entombment made seemingly of terra cotta and
painted.
So, rather later than in most other lands, and many years after the
renaissance had made itself felt in other parts of the country, Gothic
comes to an end, curiously enough not far from where the oldest
Christian buildings are found.