MOORISH CARPENTRY
If it was only in the south that Moorish masons built in stone or brick,
their carpenters had a much wider range. The wooden ceilings of as late
as the middle of the seventeenth century may show no Eastern detail, yet
in the method of their construction they are all ultimately descended
from Moorish models. Such ceilings are found all over the country, but
curiously enough the finest examples of truly Eastern work are found in
the far north at Caminha and in the island of Madeira at Funchal.
[Sidenote: Aguas Santas.]
The old romanesque church at Aguas Santas near Oporto has a roof, simple
and unadorned, the tie-beams of which are coupled in the Moorish manner.
The two beams about a foot apart are joined in the centre by four short
pieces of wood set diagonally so as to form a kind of knot. This is very
common in Moorish roofs, and may be seen at Seville and elsewhere. The
rest of the roof is boarded inside, boards being also fastened to the
underside of the collar beams.
[Sidenote: Azurara.]
At Azurara the ties are single, but the whole is boarded as at Aguas
Santas, and this is also the case at Villa do Conde and elsewhere.
In the palace chapel at Cintra, already described, the boarding is
covered with a pattern of interlacing strips, but later on panelling was
used, usually with simple mouldings. Such is the roof in the nave of the
church of Nossa Senhora do Olival at Thomar, probably of the seventeenth
century, and in many houses, as for instance in the largest hall in the
castle at Alvito. From such simple panelled ceilings the splendid
elaboration of those in the palace at Cintra was derived.
[Sidenote: Caminha.]
The roofs at Caminha and at Funchal are rather different. At Caminha the
roof is divided into bays of such a size that each of the three
divisions, the two sloping sides and the flat centre under the collar
ties, is cut into squares. In the sloping sides these squares are
divided from each other by a strip of boarding covering the space
occupied by three rafters. On this boarding are two bands of ornament
separated by a carved chain, while one band, with the chain, is returned
round the top and bottom of the square. Between each strip of boarding
are six exposed rafters, and these are united alternately by small knots
in the middle and at the ends, and by larger and more elaborate knots at
the ends. In the flat centre under the collar ties each square is again
surrounded by the band of ornament and by the chains, but here band and
chain are also carried across the corners, leaving a large octagon in
the centre with four triangles in the angles. Each octagon has a plain
border about a foot wide, and within it a plain moulding surrounding an
eight-sided hollow space. All these spaces are of some depth; each has
in the centre a pendant, and in each the opening is fringed with tracery
or foliation. In some are elaborate Gothic cuspings, in others long
carved leaves curved at the ends; and in one which happens to come
exactly over an iron tie-rod--for the rods are placed quite
irregularly--the pendant is much longer and is joined to the tie by a
small iron bar. At the sides the roof starts from a cornice of some
depth whose mouldings and ornamentation are more classic than Gothic.
(Fig. 49.)
In the side aisles the cornice is similar, but of greater projection,
and the rafters are joined to each other in much the same way, but more
simply.
[Sidenote: Funchal.]
At Funchal the roof is on a larger scale: there is no division into
squares, but the rafters are knotted together with much greater
elaboration, and the flat part is like the chapel roof at Cintra,
entirely covered with interlacing strips forming an intricate pattern
round hollow octagons.
[Sidenote: Sala dos Cysnes, Cintra.]
The simple boarding of the earlier roofs may well have led to the two
wonderful ceilings at Cintra, those in the Sala dos Cysnes, and in the
Sala dos Brazoes or dos Escudos, but the idea of the many octagons in
the Sala dos Cysnes may have come from some such roof as that at
Caminha, when the octagons are so important a feature of the design. In
that hall swans may have first been painted for Dom Joao, but the roof
has clearly been remade since then, possibly under Dom Manoel. The gilt
ornament on the mouldings seem even later, but may of course have been
added afterwards, though it is not very unlike some of the carving on
the roof at Caminha, an undoubted work of Dom Manoel's time.
This great roof in the Swan Hall has a deep and projecting classical
cornice; it is divided into three equal parts, two sloping and one flat,
with the slopes returned at the ends. The whole is made up of
twenty-three large octagons and of four other rather distorted ones in
the corners, all surrounded with elaborate mouldings, carved and gilt
like the cornice. From the square or three-sided spaces left between the
octagons there project from among acanthus leaves richly carved and gilt
pendants.
In each of the twenty-seven octagons there is painted on a flat-boarded
ground a large swan, each wearing on its neck the red velvet and gold
collar made by Dona Isabel for the real swans in the tank outside. These
paintings, which are very well done, certainly seem to belong to the
seventeenth century, for the trees and water are not at all like the
work of an artist of Dom Manoel's time. (Fig. 50.)
[Sidenote: Sala dos Escudos, Cintra.]
Even more remarkable is the roof of the Sala dos Brazoes or dos
Escudos--that is 'of the shields'--also built by Dom Manoel, and also
retouched at the same time as that in the Sala dos Cysnes. This other
hall is a large room over forty feet square. The cornice begins about
twelve feet from the ground, the walls being covered with hunting scenes
on blue and white tiles of about the end of the seventeenth century. The
cornice, about three feet deep and of considerable projection, is, like
all the mouldings, painted blue and enriched with elaborate gilt
carving. On the frieze is the following inscription in large gilt
letters:
Pois com esforcos leais
Servicos foram ganhadas
Com estas e outras tais
Devem de ser comservadas.[100]
The inscription is interrupted by brackets, round which the cornice is
returned, and on which rest round arches thrown across the four corners,
bringing the whole to an equal-sided
[Illustration: FIG. 49.
CAMINHA. ROOF OF MATRIZ.]
[Illustration: FIG. 50.
PALACE, CINTRA. SALA DOS CYSNES.]
[Illustration: CINTRA.
Portugal.
Old Palace.
Sala dos Brazoes.]
octagon. These triangular spaces are roofed with elaborate wooden
vaults, with carved and gilt ribs leaving spaces painted blue and
covered with gilt ornament. Above the cornice the panelling rises
perpendicularly for about eleven feet; there being on each cardinal side
eight panels, in two rows of four, one above the other, and over each
arch four more--forty-eight panels in all. Above this begins an
octagonal dome with elaborately carved and gilt mouldings, like those
round the panels, in each angle and round the large octagon which comes
in the middle of each side. The next stage is similar, but set at a
different angle, and with smaller and unequal-sided octagons, while the
dome ends in one large flat eight-sided panel forty-five feet above the
floor. All the space between the mouldings and the octagons is filled
with most elaborate gilt carving on a blue ground. Nor does the
decoration stop here, for the whole is a veritable Heralds' College for
all the noblest families of Portugal in the early years of the sixteenth
century. The large flat panel at the top is filled with the royal arms
carved and painted, with a crown above and rich gilt mantling all round.
In the eight panels below are the arms of Dom Manoel's eight children,
and in the eight large octagons lower down are painted large stags with
scrolls between their horns; lastly, in each of the forty-eight panels
at the bottom, and of the six spaces which occur under each of the
vaults in the four corners; in each of these seventy-two panels or
spaces there is painted a stag. Every stag has round its neck a shield
charged with the arms of a noble family, between its horns a crest, and
behind it a scroll on which is written the name of the family.[101]
The whole of this is of wood, and for beauty and originality of design,
as well as for richness of colour, cannot be surpassed anywhere. In any
northern country the seven small windows would not let in enough light,
and the whole dome would be in darkness, but the sky and air of Portugal
are clear enough for every detail to be seen, and for the gold on every
moulding and piece of carving to gleam brightly from the blue
background.
None of the ceilings of later date are in any way to be compared in
beauty or richness with those of these two halls, for in all others the
mouldings are shallower and the panels flatter.
[Sidenote: Coimbra Misericordia.]
In Coimbra there are two, both good examples of a simpler form of such
ceilings. They are, one in the Misericordia--the headquarters of a
corporation which owns and looks after all the hospitals, asylums and
orphanages in the town--and one in the great hall of the University. The
Misericordia, built by bishop Affonso de Castello Branco about the end
of the sixteenth century, has a good cloister of the later renaissance,
and opening off it two rooms of considerable size with panelled
ceilings, of which only one has its original painting. A cornice of some
size, with brackets projecting from the frieze to carry the upper
mouldings, goes round the room, and is carried across the corners so
that at the ends of the room the ceiling has one longer and two quite
short sides. The lower sloping part of the ceiling all round is divided
into square panels with three-sided panels next the squares on the short
canted sides; the upper slope is divided in exactly the same way so that
the flat centre-piece consists of three squares set diagonally and of
four triangles. All the panels are painted with a variety of emblems,
but the colours are dark and the ceiling now looks rather dingy.
[Sidenote: Sala dos Capellos University.]
The great hall of the University built by the rector, Manoel de
Saldanha, in 1655 is a very much larger and finer room. A raised seat
runs round the whole room, the lower part of the walls are covered with
tiles, and the upper with red silk brocade on which hang portraits of
all the kings of Portugal, many doubtless as authentic as the early
kings of Scotland at Holyrood. Here only the upper part of the cornice
is carried across the corners, and the three sides at either end are
equal, each being two panels wide.
As in the Misericordia the section of the roof is five-sided, each two
panels wide. All the panels are square except at the half-octagonal ends
where they diminish in breadth towards the top: they are separated by a
large cable moulding and are painted alternately red and blue with an
elaborate design in darker colour on each. (Fig. 51.)
The effect is surprisingly good, for each panel with its beautiful
design of curling and twisting acanthus, of birds, of mermaids and of
vases has almost the look of beautiful old brocade, for the blues and
reds have grown soft with age.
[Sidenote: Santa Clara, Villa do Conde.]
Before finally leaving wood ceilings it were better to speak of another
form or style which was sometimes used for their decoration although
they are even freer from Moorish detail than are those at Coimbra,
though probably like them ultimately derived from the same source. One
of the finest of these ceilings is found in the upper Nuns' Choir in the
church of Santa Clara at Villa do Conde. The church consists of a short
nave with transepts and chancel all roofed with panelled wooden
ceilings, painted grey as is often the case, and in no way remarkable.
The church was founded in 1318, but the ceilings and stalls of both
Nuns' Choirs, which,
[Sidenote: Convent, Aveiro.]
one above the other take up much the greater part of the nave, cannot be
earlier than the first half of the seventeenth century. Like the other
ceilings it is polygonal in section, but unlike all Moorish ones is not
returned round the ends. Above a finely carved cornice with elaborate
frieze, the whole ceiling is divided into deeply set panels, large and
small squares with narrow rectangles between: all alike covered with
elaborate carving, as are also the mouldings and the flat surfaces of
the dividing bands. Here the wood is left in its natural colour, but in
the nave of the church of a large convent at Aveiro, where the general
design of the ceiling is almost the same, pictures are painted in the
larger panels, and all the rest is heavily gilt, making the whole most
gorgeous.
As time went on wooden roofs became less common, stone barrel vaults
taking their place, but where they were used they were designed with a
mass of meaningless ornament, lavished over the whole surface, which was
usually gilt. One of the most remarkable examples of such a roof is
found in the chancel of that same church at Aveiro. It is semicircular
in shape and is all covered with greater and smaller carved and gilt
circles, from the smallest of which in the middle large pendants hang
down.
These circles are so arranged as to make the roof almost like that of
Henry VII. Chapel, though the two really only resemble each other in
their extreme richness and elaboration. This same extravagance of
gilding and of carving also overtook altar and reredos. Now almost every
church is full of huge masses of gilt wood, in which hardly one square
inch has been left uncarved; sometimes, if there is nothing else, and
the whole church--walls and ceiling alike--is a mass of gilding and
painting, the effect is not bad, but sometimes the contrast is terrible
between the plain grey walls of some old and simple building and the
exuberance behind the high altar.
[Illustration: FIG. 51.
COIMBRA. HALL OF UNIVERSITY.]