THE ADDITIONS TO BATALHA
Little had been done to the monastery of Batalha since the death of Dom
Duarte left his great tomb-chapel unfinished. Dom Affonso v., bent on
wasting the lives of the bravest of his people and his country's wealth
in the vain pursuit of conquests in Morocco, could spare no money to
carry out what his father had begun, and so make it possible to move his
parents' bodies from their temporary resting-place before the high altar
to the chapel intended to receive them. Affonso V. himself dying was
laid in a temporary tomb of wood in the chapter-house, as were his wife
and his grandson, the only child of Dom Joao II.; while a coffin of wood
in one of the side chapels held Dom Joao himself.
When Joao died, his widow Dona Leonor is said to have urged her brother,
the new king, to finish the work begun by their ancestor and so form a
fitting burial-place for her son as well as for himself and his
descendants. Dom Manoel therefore determined to finish the Capellas
Imperfeitas, and the work was given to the elder Matheus Fernandes, who
had till 1480, when he was followed by Joao Rodrigues, been master of
the royal works at Santarem. The first document which speaks of him at
Batalha is dated 1503, and mentions him as Matheus Fernandes, vassal of
the king, judge in ordinary of the town of Santa Maria da Victoria, and
master of the works of the same monastery, named by the king. He died in
1515, and was buried near the west door.[120] He was followed by another
Matheus Fernandes, probably his son, who died in 1528, to be succeeded
by Joao de Castilho. But by then Dom Manoel was already dead. He had
been buried not here, but in his new foundation of Belem, and his son
Joao III. and Joao de Castilho himself were too much occupied in
finishing Belem and in making great additions to Thomar to be able to do
much to the Capellas Imperfeitas. So after building two beautiful but
incongruous arches, Joao de Castilho went back to his work elsewhere,
and the chapels remain Imperfeitas to this day.
It will be remembered that the tomb-house begun by Dom Duarte took the
form of a vast octagon some seventy-two feet in diameter surrounded by
seven apsidal chapels--one on each side except that towards the
church--and by eight smaller chapels between the apses. When Matheus
Fernandes began his work most of the seven surrounding chapels were
finished except for their vaulting, but not all, as in two or three the
outer moulding of the entrance arch is enriched by small crosses of the
Order of Christ, and by armillary spheres carved in the hollow; while
the whole building stood isolated and unconnected with the church.
The first thing, therefore, done by Matheus was to build an entrance
hall or pateo uniting the octagon with the church. Unless the walls of
the Pateo be older than Dom Manoel's time it is impossible now to tell
how Huguet, Dom Duarte's architect, meant to connect the two, perhaps by
a low passage running eastwards from the central apse, perhaps not at
all.
The plan carried out by Matheus took the form of a rectangular hall
enclosing the central apse and the two smaller apses to the north and
south, but leaving--now at any rate--a space between it and the side
apses. Possibly the original intention may have been to pull down the
two side apses, and so to form a square ambulatory behind the high altar
leading to the great octagon beyond; but if that were the intention it
was never carried out, and now the only entrance is through an
insignificant pointed door on the north side.
The walls of the Pateo with their buttresses, string courses and parapet
are so exactly like the older work as to suggest that they may really
date from the time of Dom Duarte, and that all that Matheus Fernandes
did was to build the vault, insert the windows, and form the splendid
entrance to the octagon; but in any case the building was well advanced
if not finished in 1509, when over the small entrance door was written,
'Perfectum fuit anno Domini 1509.'
Two windows light the Pateo, one looking north and one south. They are
both alike, and both are thoroughly Manoelino in style. They are of two
lights, with well-moulded jambs, and half-octagonal heads. The
drip-mould, instead or merely surrounding the half octagon, is so broken
and bent as to project across it at four points, being indeed shaped
like half a square with a semicircle on the one complete side, and two
quarter circles on the half sides, all enriched by many a small cusp and
leaf. The mullion is made of two branches twisting upwards, and the
whole window head is filled with curving boughs and leaves forming a
most curious piece of naturalistic tracery, to be compared with the
tracery of some of the openings in the Claustro Real. (Fig. 58.)
No doubt, while the Pateo was being built, the great entrance to the
Imperfect chapels, one of the richest as well as one of the largest
doorways in the world, was begun, and it must have taken a long time to
build and to carve, for the lower part, on the chapel side especially,
seems to be rather earlier in style than the upper. The actual opening
to the springing of the arch measures some 17 feet wide by 28 feet high,
while including the jambs the whole is about 24 feet wide on the chapel,
and considerably more on the Pateo side,--since there the splay is much
deeper--by 40 feet high. To take the chapel side first:--Above a
complicated base there is up the middle of each jamb a large hollow, in
which are two niches one above the other, with canopies and bases of the
richest late Gothic; on either side of this hollow are tall thin shafts
entirely carved with minute diaper, two on the inner and one on the
outer side. Next towards the chapel is another slender shaft, bearing
two small statues one above the other, and outside it slender Gothic
pinnacles and tabernacle work rise up to the capital. Up the outer side
of the jambs are carved sharp pointed leaves, like great acanthus whose
stalk bears many large exquisitely carved crockets. On the other side of
the central hollow the diapered shaft is separated from the tiers of
tiny pinnacles which form the inner angle of the jamb by a broad band of
carving, which for beauty of design and for delicacy of carving can
scarcely be anywhere surpassed. On the Pateo side the carving is even
more wonderful.[121] There are seven shafts in all on each side, some
diapered, some covered with spirals of leaves, one with panelling and
one with exquisite foliage carved as minutely as on a piece of ivory.
Between each shaft are narrow mouldings, and between the outer five four
bands of ivy, not as rich or as elaborately undercut as on the chapel
side, but still beautiful, and interesting as the ivy forms many double
circles, two hundred and four in all, in each of which are written the
words 'Tayas Erey' or 'Taya Serey,' Dom Manoel's motto. For years this
was a great puzzle. In the seventeenth century the writer of the history
of the Dominican Order in Portugal, Frei Luis de Souza, boldly said they
were Greek, and in this opinion he was supported by 'persons of great
judgment, for "Tanyas" is the accusative of a Greek word "Tanya," which
is the same as region, and "erey" is the imperative of the verb "ereo",
which signifies to seek, inquire, investigate, so that the meaning is,
addressed to Dom Manoel, seek for new regions, new climes.' Of course
whatever the meaning may be it is not Greek, indeed at that time in
Portugal there was hardly any one who could speak Greek, and Senhora de
Vasconcellos--than whom no one has done more for the collecting of
inscriptions in Portugal--has come to the very probable conclusion that
the words are Portuguese. She holds that 'Tayas erey' or 'Taya serey'
should be read 'Tanaz serey,' 'I shall be tenacious'--for Tanaz is old
Portuguese for Tenaz--and that the Y is nothing but a rebus or picture
of a tenaz or pair of pincers, and indeed the Y's are very like pincers.
In this opinion she is upheld by the carving of the tenacious ivy round
each word, and the fact that Dom Manoel was not really tenacious at all,
but rather changeable, makes it all the more likely that he would adopt
such a motto.
The carvers were doubtless quite illiterate and may well have thought
that the pincers in the drawing from which they were working were a
letter and may therefore have mixed them up to the puzzling of future
generations.[122] Or since nowhere is 'Tayaz serey' written with the 'z'
may not the first 'y' be the final 'z' of Tanaz misplaced?
The arched head of the opening is treated differently on the two sides.
Towards the Pateo the two outer mouldings form a large half octagon set
diagonally and with curved sides; the next two form a large trefoil. In
the spandrels between these are larger wreaths enclosing 'Tanyas erey,'
which is also repeated all round these four mouldings.
The trefoils form large hanging cusps in front of the complicated inner
arch. This too is more or less trefoil in shape,
[Illustration: Fig. 57.
BATALHA ENTRANCE TO CAPELLAS INPERFEITAS.
From a photograph by E. Biel & Co., Oporto]
but with smaller curves between the larger, and all elaborately fringed
with cuspings and foliage.
Four mouldings altogether are of this shape, two on each side, and
beyond them towards the chapel is that arch or moulding which gives to
the whole its most distinctive character. The great trefoil, with large
cusps, which forms the head is crossed by another moulding in such a way
as to become a cinquefoil, while the second moulding, like the hood of
the door at Santarem, forms three large reversed cusps, each ending in
splendid acanthus leaves. Further, the whole of these mouldings are on
the inner side carved with a delicate spiral of ribbon and small balls,
and on the outer with the same acanthus that runs up the jambs.
Now, on the chapel side especially, from the base to the springing there
is little that might not be found in late French Gothic work, except
perhaps that diapered shafts were not then used in France, and that the
bands of carving are rather different in spirit from French work; but as
for the head, no opening of that size was made in France of so
complicated and, it must be added, so unconstructional a shape. It is
the _chef-d'oeuvre_ of the Manoelino style, and although a foreigner
may be inclined at first, from its very strangeness, to call it Eastern,
it is really only a true development in the hands of a real artist of
what Manoelino was; an expression of Portugal's riches and power, and of
the gradual assimilation of such Moors as still remained on this side
the Straits. Of course it is easy to say that it is extravagant,
overloaded and debased; and so it may be. Yet no one who sees it can
help falling a victim to its fascination, for perhaps its only real
fault is that the great cusps and finials are on rather too large a
scale for the rest. Not even the greatest purist could help admiring the
exquisite fineness of the carving--a fineness made possible by the
limestone, very soft when new, which gradually hardens and grows to a
lovely yellow with exposure to the air. No records tell us so, but
considering the difference in style between the upper and the lower part
it may perhaps be conjectured that the elder Matheus designed the lower
part, and the younger the upper, after his father's death in 1515.
In the great octagon itself the first thing to be done was to build huge
piers, which partly encroach on the small sepulchral chapels between the
larger apses. These piers now rise nearly to the level of the central
aisle of the church where they are cut off unfinished; they must be
about 80 or 90 feet in height. On the outer side they are covered with
many circular shafts which are banded together by mouldings at nearly
regular intervals. Haupt has pointed out that in general appearance they
are not unlike the great minar called the Kutub at Old Delhi, and a
lively imagination might see a resemblance to the vast piers, once the
bases of minars, which flank the great entrance archways of some mosques
at Ahmedabad, for example those in the Jumma Musjid. Yet there is no
necessity to go so far afield. Manoelino architects had always been fond
of bundles of round mouldings and so naturally used them here, nor
indeed are the piers at all like either the Kutub or the minars at
Ahmedabad. They have not the batter or the sharp angles of the one, nor
the innumerable breaks and mouldings of the others.
Between each pier a large window was meant to open, of which
unfortunately nothing has been built but part of the jambs.
Inside the vaulting of the apsidal chapels was first finished; all the
vaults are elaborate, have well-moulded ribs, and bosses, some carved
with crosses of the Order of Christ, some with armillary spheres, others
with a cross and the words 'In hoc signo vinces,' or with a sphere and
the words 'Espera in Domino.' Where Dom Joao II. was to be buried is a
pelican vulning herself--for that was his device--and in that intended
for his father Dom Affonso V. a 'rodisio' or mill-wheel. A little above
the entrance arches to the chapels the octagon is surrounded by two
carved string courses separated by a broad plain frieze.[123] On the
lower string are the beautifully modelled necks and heads of dragons,
springing from acanthus leaves and so set as to form a series of M's,
and on the upper an exquisite pattern arranged in squares, while on it
rests a most remarkable cresting. In this cresting, which is formed of a
single bud set on branches between two coupled buds, the forms are most
strange and at the same time beautiful.
Inside, the great piers have been much more highly adorned than without.
The vaulting shafts in the middle--which, formed of several small round
mouldings, have run up quite plain from the ground, only interrupted by
shields and their mantling on the frieze--are here broken and twisted.
On either side are niches with Gothic canopies, above which are
interlacing leaves and branches. Beyond the niches are the window jambs,
on which, next the opening, are shafts carved with naturalistic
tree-stems, and between these and the niches two bands of ornament
separated by thin plain shafts.
In each opening these bands are different. In some is Gothic foliage, in
others semi-classic carving like the string below or realistic like the
cresting. In others are naturalistic branches, and in the opening over
the chapel where Dom Manoel was to lie are cut the letters M in one hand
and R in the other; Manoel Rey. (Fig. 59.)
Only the first foot or so of the vaulting has been built, and there is
nothing now to show how the great octagon was to be roofed. Murphy[124]
gives his idea; the eight piers carried high up and capped with spires,
huge Gothic windows between, and the whole covered by a vast pointed
roof--presumably of wood--above the vault. Haupt with his Indian
prepossessions suggests a dome surrounded by eight great domed
pinnacles. Probably neither is right; certainly Murphy's great roof of
wood would never have been made, and as for Haupt's dome nothing domed
was built in Portugal till long after and that at first only on a small
scale.[125] Besides, the well-developed Gothic ribs which are seen
springing in each corner clearly show that some kind of Gothic vault was
meant, and not a dome; and that the Portuguese could build wonderful
vaults had been already shown by the chapter-house here and was soon to
be shown by the transept at Belem. So in all probability the roof would
have been a great Gothic vault of which the centre would rise very
considerably above the sides; for there is no sign of stilting the ribs
over the windows. The whole would have been covered with stone slabs,
and would have been surrounded by eight groups of pinnacles, most of
which would no doubt have been twisted.
Deeply though one must regret that this great chapel has been left
unfinished and open to the sky, yet even in its incomplete state it is a
treasure-house of beautiful ornament, and it is wonderful how well the
more commonplace Gothic of Huguet's work agrees with and even enhances
the richness of the detail which Fernandes drew from so many sources,
late Gothic, early renaissance, and naturalistic, and which he knew so
well how to combine into a beautiful whole.
The great Claustro Real, built by Dom Joao I., was peculiar among
Portuguese cloisters in having, or at least being prepared for, large
traceried windows. Probably these had remained blank, and for about a
hundred years awaited the tracery which more than any part of the
convent shows the skill of Matheus Fernandes.
There seems to be no exact record of when the work was done, but it must
have been while additions were being made to the Imperfect chapels,
though more fortunate than they, the work here was successfully
finished.
The cloister has seven bays on each side, of which the five in the
middle are nearly equal, having either five or six lights. In the
eastern corners the openings have only three lights, in the
south-western they have four, and in the north-western there stands the
square two-bayed lavatory. (Fig. 60.)
In all the openings the shafts are alike. They have tall eight-sided and
round bases, similar capitals and a moulded ring half-way up, while the
whole shaft from ring to base and from ring to capital is carved with
the utmost delicacy, with spirals, with diaper patterns, or with
leaflike scales. Above the capitals the pointed openings are filled in
with veils of tracery of three different patterns. In the central bay,
and in the two next but one on either side of it, and so filling nine
openings, is what at first seems to be a kind of reticulated tracery.
But on looking closer it is found to be built up of leaf-covered curves
and of buds very like those forming the cresting in the Capellas
Imperfeitas. In the corner bays--except where stands the lavatory--there
is another form of reticulated tracery, where the larger curves are
formed by branches, whose leaves make the cusps, while filling in the
larger spaces are budlike growths like those in the first-mentioned
windows.
On either side of the central openings the tracery is more naturalistic
than elsewhere; here the whole is formed of interlacing and intertwining
branches, with leaves and large fruit-like poppy heads, and in the
centre the Cross of the Order of Christ. But of all, the most successful
is in the lavatory; there the two bays which form each side are high and
narrow,
[Illustration: FIG. 58.
BATALHA.
WINDOW OF PATEO.]
[Illustration: FIG. 59.
BATALHA.
CAPELLAS IMPERFEITAS.
UPPER PART.
_From a photograph by E. Biel & Co., Oporto._]
with richly cusped pointed arches. Instead of cutting out the cusps and
filling the upper part with tracery, Matheus Fernandes has with
extraordinary skill thrown a crested transome across the opening and
below it woven together a veil of exquisitely carved branches, which,
resting on a central shaft, half hide and half reveal the large marble
fountain within. (Fig. 61.)
At first, perhaps, accustomed to the ordinary forms of Gothic tracery,
these windows seem strange, to some even unpleasing. Soon, however, when
they have been studied more closely, when it has been recognised that
the brilliant sunshine needs closer tracery and smaller openings than
does the cooler North, and that indeed the aim of the designer is to
keep out rather than to let in the direct rays of light, no one can be
anything but thankful that Matheus Fernandes, instead of trying to adapt
Gothic forms to new requirements, as was done by his predecessors in the
church, boldly invented new forms for himself; forms which are entirely
suited to the sun, the clear air and sky, and which with their creamy
lace make a fitting background to the roses and flowers with which the
cloister is now planted.
Now the question arises, from whence did Matheus Fernandes draw his
inspiration? We have seen that windows with good Gothic tracery are
almost unknown in Portugal, for even in the church here at Batalha the
larger windows nearly all show a want of knowledge, and a wish to shut
out the sun as much as possible, and besides there is really no
resemblance between the tracery in the church and that in the cloister.
In the lowest floor of the Torre de Sao Vicente, begun by Dom Joao II.
and finished by Dom Manoel to defend the channel of the Tagus, the
central hall is divided from a passage by a thin wall whose upper part
is pierced to form a perforated screen. The original plan for the tower
is said to have been furnished by Garcia de Resende, whose house we have
seen at Evora, and if this screen, which is built up of heart-shaped
curves, is older than the cloister windows at Batalha, he may have
suggested to Matheus Fernandes the tracery which has a more or less
reticulated form, though on the other hand it may be later and have been
suggested by them. Most probably, however, Matheus Fernandes thought out
the tracery for himself. He would not have had far to go to see real
reticulated panelling, for the church is covered with it; but an even
more likely source of this reticulation might be found in the beautiful
Moorish panelling which exists on such buildings as the Giralda or the
tower at Rabat, and if we find Moors among the workmen at Thomar there
may well have been some at Batalha as well. As for the naturalistic
tracery, it is clearly only an improvement on such windows as those of
the Pateo behind the church, and there is no need to go to Ahmedabad and
find there pierced screens to which they have a certain resemblance.
However, whatever may be its origin, this tracery it is which makes the
Claustro Real not only the most beautiful cloister in Portugal, but
even, as that may not seem very great praise, one of the most beautiful
cloisters in the world, and it must have been even more beautiful before
a modern restoration crowned all the walls with a pierced Gothic parapet
and a spiky cresting, whose angular form and sharp mouldings do not
quite harmonise with the rounded and gentle curves of the tracery below.
After the suppression of the monastic orders in 1834, Batalha, which had
already suffered terribly from the French invasion--for in 1810 during
the retreat under Massena two cloisters were burned and much furniture
destroyed--was for a time left to decay. However, in 1840 the Cortes
decreed an annual expenditure of two contos of reis,[126] or about L450
to keep the buildings in repair and to restore such parts as were
damaged.
The first director was Senhor Luis d'Albuquerque, and he and his
successors have been singularly successful in their efforts, and have
carried out a restoration with which little fault can be found, except
that they have been too lavish in building pierced parapets, and in
filling the windows of the church with wooden fretwork and with hideous
green, red and blue glass.
[Illustration: FIG. 60.
BATALHA.
CLOISTER.
_From a photograph by E. Biel & Co., Oporto._]
[Illustration: FIG. 61.
BATALHA.
LAVATORY IN CLAUSTRO REAL.]