BELEM
Belem or Bethlehem lies close to the shore, after the broad estuary of
the Tagus has again grown narrow, about four miles from the centre of
Lisbon, and may best be reached by one of the excellent electric cars
which now so well connect together the different parts of the town and
its wide-spreading suburbs.
Situated where the river mouth is at its narrowest, it is natural that
it was chosen as the site of one of the forts built to defend the
capital. Here, then, on a sandbank washed once by every high tide, but
now joined to the mainland by so unromantic a feature as the gasworks, a
tower begun by Dom Joao II., and designed, it is said, by Garcia de
Resende, was finished by Dom Manoel about 1520 and dedicated to Sao
Vicente, the patron of Lisbon.[127]
The tower is not of very great size, perhaps some forty feet square by
about one hundred high. It stands free on three sides, but on the south
towards the water it is protected by a great projecting bastion, which,
rather wider than the tower, ends at the water edge in a polygon.
The tower contains several stories of one room each, none of which are
in themselves in any way remarkable except the lowest, in which is the
perforated screen mentioned in the last chapter. In the second story the
south window opens on to a long balcony running the whole breadth of the
tower, and the other windows on to smaller balconies. The third story is
finished with a fortified parapet resting on great corbels. The last and
fourth, smaller than those below, is fortified with pointed merlons, and
with a round corbelled turret at each corner.
On entering, it is found that the bastion contains a sort of cloister
with a flat paved roof on to which opens the door of the tower. Under
the cloister are horrid damp dungeons, last used by Dom Miguel, who
during his usurpation imprisoned in them such of his liberal opponents
as he could catch. The whole bastion is fortified with great merlons,
rising above a rope moulding, each, like those on the tower, bearing a
shield carved with the Cross of the Order of Christ, and by round
turrets corbelled out at the corners. These, like all the turrets, are
capped with melon-shaped stone roofs, and curious finials. Similar
turrets jut out from two corners of the ground floor.
The parapet also of the cloister is interesting. It is divided into
squares, in each of which a quatrefoil encloses a cross of the Order of
Christ. At intervals down the sides are spiral pinnacles, at the corners
columns bearing spheres, and at the south end a tall niche, elaborately
carved, under whose strange canopy stand a Virgin and Child.
The most interesting features of the tower are the balconies. That on
the south side, borne on huge corbels, has in front an arcade of seven
round arches, resting on round shafts with typical Manoelino caps. A
continuous sloping stone roof covers the whole, enriched at the bottom
by a rope moulding, and marked with curious nicks at the top. The
parapet is Gothic and very thin. The other balconies are the same, a
pointed tentlike roof ending in a knob, a parapet whose circles enclose
crosses of the order, but with only two arches in front.
The third story is lit by two light windows on three sides, and on the
south side by two round-headed windows, between which is cut a huge
royal coat-of-arms crowned.
Altogether the building is most picturesque, the balconies are charming,
and the round turrets and the battlements give it a look of strength and
at the same time add greatly to its appearance. The general outline,
however, is not altogether pleasing owing to the setting back of the top
story. (Fig. 62.)
The detail, however, is most interesting. It is throughout Manoelino,
and that too with hardly an admixture of Gothic. There is no naturalism,
and hardly any suggestion of the renaissance, and as befits a fort it is
without any of the exuberance so common to buildings of this time.
Now here again, as at Thomar and Batalha, Haupt has seen a result of
the intercourse with India; both in the balconies and in the turret
roofs[128] he sees a likeness to a temple in Gujerat; and it must be
admitted that in the example he gives the balconies and roofs are not at
all unlike those at Belem. It might further be urged that Garcia de
Resende who designed the tower, if he was never in India himself, formed
part of Dom Manoel's great embassy to Rome in 1514, when the wonders of
the East were displayed before the Pope, that he might easily be
familiar with Indian carvings or paintings, and that finally there are
no such balconies elsewhere in Portugal. All that may be true, and yet
in his own town of Evora there are still many pavilions more like the
smaller balconies than are those in India, and it surely did not need
very great originality to put such a pavilion on corbels and so give the
tower its most distinctive feature. As for the turrets, in Spain there
are many, at Medina del Campo or at Coca, which are corbelled out in
much the same way, though their roofs are different, and like though the
melon-shaped dome of the turrets may be to some in Gujerat, they are
more like those at Bacalhoa, and surely some proof of connection between
Belem and Gujerat, better than mere likeness, is wanted before the
Indian theory can be accepted. That the son of an Indian viceroy should
roof his turrets at Bacalhoa with Indian domes might seem natural; but
the turrets were certainly built before he bought the Quinta in 1528,
and neither they nor the house shows any other trace of Indian
influence.
The night of July 7, 1497, the last Vasco da Gama and his captains were
to spend on shore before starting on the momentous voyage which ended at
Calicut, was passed by them in prayer, in a small chapel built by Prince
Henry the Navigator for the use of sailors, and dedicated to Nossa
Senhora do Restello.
Two years later he landed again in the Tagus, with a wonderful story of
the difficulties overcome and of the vast wealth which he had seen in
the East. As a thankoffering Dom Manoel at once determined to found a
great monastery for the Order of St. Jerome on the spot where stood
Prince Henry's chapel. Little time was lost, and the first stone was
laid on April 1 of the next year.
The first architect was that Boutaca who, about ten years before, had
built the Jesus Church at Setubal for the king's nurse, Justa Rodrigues,
and to him is probably due the plan. Boutaca was succeeded in 1511 by
Lourenco Fernandes, who in turn gave place to Joao de Castilho in
1517[129] or 1522.
It is impossible now to say how much each of these different architects
contributed to the building as finished. At Setubal Boutaca had built a
church with three vaulted aisles of about the same height. The idea was
there carried out very clumsily, but it is quite likely that Belem owes
its three aisles of equal height to his initiative even though they were
actually carried out by some one else.
Judging also from the style, for the windows show many well-known
Manoelino features, while the detail of the great south door is more
purely Gothic, they too and the walls may be the work of Boutaca or of
Lourenco Fernandes, while the great door is almost certainly that of
Joao de Castilho.
In any case, when Joao de Castilho came the building was not nearly
finished, for in 1522 he received a thousand cruzados towards building
columns and the transept vault.[130]
But even more important to the decoration of the building than either
Boutaca or Joao de Castilho was the coming of Master Nicolas, the
Frenchman[131] whom we shall see at work at Coimbra and at Sao Marcos.
Belem seems to have been the first place to which he came after leaving
home, and we soon find him at work there on the statues of the great
south door, and later on those of the west door, where, with the
exception of the Italian door at Cintra, is carved what is probably the
earliest piece of renaissance detail in the country.
The south door, except for a band of carving round each entrance, is
free of renaissance detail, and so was probably built before Nicolas
added the statues, but in the western a few such details begin to
appear, and in these, as in the band round the other openings, he may
have had a hand. Inside renaissance detail is more in evidence, but
since the great piers would not be carved till after they were built, it
is more likely that the renaissance work there is due to Joao de
Castilho himself and to what he had learned either from Nicolas or
[Illustration: FIG. 62.
TORRE DE SAO VICENTE.
BELEM.]
[Illustration: FIG. 63.
BELEM.
SACRISTY.]
from the growing influence of the Coimbra School. It is, of course, also
possible that when Nicolas went to Coimbra, where he was already at work
in 1524, some French assistant may have stayed behind, yet the carving
on the piers is rather coarser than in most French work, and so was more
probably done by Portuguese working under Castilho's direction.
The monastic buildings were begun after the church; but although at
first renaissance forms seem supreme in the cloisters, closer inspection
will show that they are practically confined to the carving on the
buttresses and on the parapets of the arches thrown across from buttress
to buttress. All the rest, except the door of the chapter-house--the
refectory, undertaken by Leonardo Vaz, the chapter-house itself, and the
great undercroft of the dormitory stretching 607 feet away opposite the
west door, and scarcely begun in 1521, are purely Manoelino, so that the
date 1544 on the lower cloister must refer to the finishing of the
renaissance additions and not to the actual building, especially as the
upper cloister is even more completely Gothic than the lower.
The sacristy, adjoining the north transept, must have been one of the
last parts of the original building to be finished, since in it the
vault springs in the centre from a beautiful round shaft covered with
renaissance carving and standing on a curious base. (Fig. 63.)
The first chancel, which in 1523 was nearly ready, was thought to be too
small and so was pulled down, being replaced in 1551 by a rather poor
classic structure designed by Diogo de Torralva. In it now lie Dom
Manoel, his son Dom Joao III., and the unfortunate Dom Sebastiao, his
great-grandson. Vasco da Gama and other national heroes have also found
a resting-place in the church, and the chapter-house is nearly filled
with the tomb of Herculano, the best historian of his country.
Since the expulsion of the monks in 1834 the monastic buildings have
been turned into an excellent orphanage for boys, who to the number of
about seven hundred are taught some useful trade and who still use the
refectory as their dining-hall. The only other change since 1835 has
been the building of an exceedingly poor domed top to the south-west
tower instead of its original low spire, the erection of an upper story
above the long undercroft, and of a great entrance tower half-way
along, with the result that the tower soon fell, destroying the vault
below.
[Illustration: O Mosheiro des Jeronimos de Sta Maria de Belem.
1. CHAPTER HOVSE
2. SACRISTY
3. REFECTORY
4. CHOIR GALLERY
5. INTENDED ENTRANCE PORCH
6. VNDERCROFT OF DORMITORY
607 FEET LONG
FOVNDED BY DOM MANOEL APRIL 21 1500.
BOVTACA ARCHITECT TILL 1511. SVCCEEDED BY
LOVRENCO FERNANDES. LITTLE DONE TILL
1522 WHEN JOAO DE CASTILHO SVCCEEDED.
LOWER CLOISTER FINISHED 1544.
CAPELLA MOR REBVILT 1551 BY DIOGO DE
TORRALVA.
]
The plan of the church is simple but original. It consists of a nave of
four bays with two oblong towers to the west. The westernmost bay is
divided into two floors by a great choir gallery entered from the upper
cloister and also extending to the west between the towers, which on the
ground floor form chapels. The whole nave with its three aisles of equal
height measures from the west door to the transept some 165 feet long by
77 broad and over 80 high. East of the nave the church spreads out into
an enormous transept 95 feet long by 65 wide, and since the vast vault
is almost barrel-shaped considerably higher than the nave. North and
south of this transept are smaller square chapels, and to the east the
later chancel, the whole church being some 300 feet long inside. North
of the nave is the cloister measuring 175 feet by 185, on its western
side the refectory 125 feet by 30, and on the east next the transept a
sacristy 48 feet square, and north of it a chapter-house of about the
same size, but increased on its northern side by a large apse. In the
thickness of the north wall of the nave a stair leads from the transept
to the upper cloister, and a series of confessionals open alternately,
the one towards the church for the penitent and the next towards the
lower cloister for the father confessor. Lastly, separated from the
church by an open space once forming a covered porch, there stretches
away to the west the great undercroft, 607 feet long by 30 wide.
Taking the outside of the church first. The walls of the transept and of
the transept chapel are perfectly plain, without buttresses, with but
little cornice and, now at least, without a cresting or parapet. They
are only relieved by an elaborate band of ornament which runs along the
whole south side of the church, by the tall round-headed windows, and in
the main transept by a big rope moulding which carries on the line of
the chapel roof. Plain as it is, this part of the church is singularly
imposing from its very plainness and from its great height, and were the
cornice and cresting complete and the original chancel still standing
would equal if not surpass in beauty the more elaborate nave. The
windows--one of which lights the main transept on each side of the
chancel, and two, facing east and west, the chapel which also has a
smaller round window looking south--are of great size, being about
thirty-four feet high by over six wide; they are deeply set in the thick
wall, are surrounded by two elaborate bands of carving, and have
crocketed ogee hood-moulds.
The great band of ornament which is interrupted by the lower part of the
windows has a rope moulding at the top above which are carved and
interlacing branches, two rope mouldings at the bottom, and between them
a band of carving consisting of branches twisted into intertwining S's,
ending in leaves at the bottom and buds at the top, the whole being
nearly six feet across.
The three eastern bays of the nave are separated by buttresses, square
below, polygonal above, and ending in round shafts and pinnacles at the
top. The cornice, here complete, is deep with its five carved mouldings,
but not of great projection. On it stands the cresting of elaborately
branched leaves, nearly six feet high.
The central bay is entirely occupied by the great south door which, with
its niches, statues and pinnacles entirely hides the lower part of the
buttresses. The outer round arch of the door is thrown across between
the two buttresses, which for more than half their height are covered
with carved and twisted mouldings, with niches, canopies, corbels, and
statues all carved with the utmost elaboration. Immediately above the
great arch is a round-headed window, and on either side between it and
the buttresses are two rows of statues and niches in tiers separated by
elaborate statue-bearing shafts and pinnacles. Statues even occupy
niches on the window jamb, and a Virgin and Child stand up in front on
the end of the ogee drip-mould of the great arch. (Fig. 64.)
It will be seen later how poorly Diogo de Castilho at Coimbra finished
off his window on the west front of Santa Cruz. Here the work was
probably finished first, and it is curious that Diogo in copying his
brother's design did not also copy the great canopy which overshadows
the window and which, rising through the cornice to a great pinnacled
niche, so successfully finishes the whole design. Here too the
buttresses carry up the design to the top of the wall, and with the
strong cornice and rich cresting save it from the weakness which at
Coimbra is emphasised by the irregularity of the walling above.
Luckier than the door at Coimbra this one retains its central jamb, on
which, on a twisting shaft from whose base look out two charming lions,
there stands, most appropriately, Prince Henry the Navigator, without
whose enterprise Vasco da Gama would in all probability never have
sailed to India and so given occasion for the founding of this church.
Round each of the two entrances runs a band of renaissance carving, and
the flat reliefs in the divided tympanum are rather like some that may
be seen in France,[132] but otherwise the detail is all Gothic. Twisted
shafts bearing the corbels, elaborate canopies, crocketed finials, all
are rather Gothic than Manoelino. Since the material--a kind of
marble--is much less fine than the stone used at Batalha or in Coimbra
or Thomar, the carving is naturally less minute and ivory-like than it
is there, and this is especially the case with the foliage, which is
rather coarse. The statues too--except perhaps Prince Henry's--are a
little short and sturdy.
The tall windows in the bays on either side of this great door are like
those in the transept, except that round them are three bands of carving
instead of two, the one in the centre formed of rods which at intervals
of about a foot are broken to cross each other in the middle, and that
beyond the jambs tall twisted shafts run up to round finials just under
the cornice.
In the next bay to the west, where is the choir gallery inside, there
are two windows, one above the other, like the larger ones but smaller,
and united by a moulding which runs round both.
The same is the case with the tower, where, however, the upper window is
divided into two, the lower being a circle and the upper having three
intersecting lights. The drip-mould is also treated in the common
Manoelino way with large spreading finials. Above the cornice, which is
less elaborate than in the nave, was a short octagonal drum capped by a
low spire, now replaced by a poor dome and flying buttresses.
The west door once opened into a three-aisled porch now gone. It is much
less elaborate than the great south door, but shows great ingenuity in
fitting it in under what was once the porch vault. The twisted and
broken curves of the head follow a common Manoelino form, and below the
top of the broken hood-mould are two flying angels who support a large
corbel on which is grouped the Holy Family. On the jambs are three
narrow bands of foliage, and one of figures standing under renaissance
canopies. On either side are spreading corbels and large niches with
curious bulbous canopies[133] under which kneel Dom Manoel on the left
presented by St. Jerome, and on the right, presented by St. John the
Baptist, his second wife, Queen Maria--like the first, Queen Isabel, a
daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella and the aunt of his third wife,
Leonor. These figures are evidently portraits, and even if they were
flattered show that they were not a handsome couple.
Below these large corbels, on which are carved large angels, are two
smaller niches with figures, one on each side of the twisted shaft.
Renaissance curves form the heads of these as they do of larger niches,
one on each side of the Holy Family above, which contain the
Annunciation and the Visit of the Wise Men.
Beyond Dom Manoel and his wife are square shafts with more niches and
figures, and beyond them again flatter niches, half Manoelino, half
renaissance. The rest of the west front above the ruined porch is plain
except for a large round window lighting the choir gallery. The
north-west tower does not rise above the roof.
Outside, the church as a whole is neither well proportioned nor
graceful. The great mass of the transept is too overwhelming, the nave
not long enough, and above all, the large windows of the nave too large.
It would have looked much better had they been only the size of the
smaller windows lighting the choir gallery--omitting the one below, and
this would further have had the advantage of not cutting up the
beautiful band of ornament. But the weakest part of the whole design are
the towers, which must always have been too low, and yet would have been
too thin for the massive building behind them had they been higher. Now,
of course, the one finished with a dome has nothing to recommend it,
neither height, nor proportion, nor design. Yet the doorway taken by
itself, or together with the bay on either side, is a very successful
composition, and on a brilliantly sunny day so blue is the sky and so
white the stone that hardly any one would venture to criticise it for
being too elaborate and over-charged, though no doubt it might seem so
were the stone dingy and the sky grey and dull.
The church of Belem may be ill-proportioned and unsatisfactory outside,
but within it is so solemn and vast as to fill one with surprise.
Compared with many churches the actual area is not really very great nor
is it very high, yet there is perhaps no other building which gives such
an impression of space and of freedom. Entering from the brilliant
sunlight it seems far darker than, with large windows, should be the
case, and however hideous the yellow-and-blue checks with which they are
filled may be, they have the advantage of keeping out all brilliant
light; the huge transept too is not well lit and gives that feeling of
vastness and mystery which, as the supports are few and slender, would
otherwise be wanting, while looking westwards the same result is
obtained by the dark cavernous space under the gallery. (Fig. 65.)
[Illustration: FIG. 64.
BELEM.
SOUTH SIDE OF CHURCH OF JERONYMOS.]
[Illustration: FIG. 65.
BELEM.
NAVE OF CHURCH LOOKING WEST.]
On the south side the walls are perfectly plain, broken only by the
windows, whose jambs are enriched with empty niches; on the north the
small windows are placed very high up, the twisted vaulting shafts only
come down a short way to a string course some way below the windows,
leaving a great expanse of cliff-like wall. At the bottom are the
confessional doors, so small that they add greatly to the scale, and
above them tall narrow niches and their canopies. But the nave piers are
the most astonishing part of the whole building. Not more than three
feet thick, they rise up to a height of nearly seventy feet to support a
great stone vault. Four only of the six stand clear from floor to roof,
for the two western are embedded at the bottom in the jambs of the
gallery arches. From their capitals the vaulting ribs spread out in
every direction, being constructively not unlike an English fan vault,
and covering the whole roof with a network of lines. The piers are
round, stand on round moulded pedestals, and are divided into narrow
strips by eight small shafts. The height is divided into four nearly
equal parts by well-moulded rings, encircling the whole pier, and in the
middle of the second of these divisions are corbels and canopies for
statues. The capitals are round and covered with leaves, but scarcely
exceed the piers in diameter. Besides all this each strip between the
eight thin shafts is covered from top to bottom--except where the empty
niches occur--with carving in slight relief, either foliage or, more
usually, renaissance arabesques.
Larger piers stand next the transept, cross-shaped, formed of four of
the thinner piers set together, and about six feet thick. They are like
the others, except that there are corbels and canopies for statues in
the angles, and that a capital is formed by a large moulding carved with
what is meant for egg and tongue. From this, well moulded and carved
arches, round in the central and pointed in the side aisles, cross the
nave from side to side, dividing its vault from that of the transept.
This transept vault, perhaps the largest attempted since the days of the
Romans--for it covers a space measuring about ninety-five feet by
sixty-five--is three bays long from north to south and two wide from
east to west; formed of innumerable ribs springing from these points--of
which those at the north and south ends are placed immediately above the
arches leading to the chapels--it practically assumes in the middle the
shape of a flat oblong dome.
Now, though the walls are thick, there are no buttresses, and the skill
and daring required to build a vault sixty-five feet wide and about a
hundred feet high resting on side walls on one side and on piers
scarcely six feet thick on the other must not only excite the admiration
of every one, especially when it is remembered that no damage was caused
by the great earthquake which shook Lisbon to pieces in 1755, but must
also raise the wish that what has been so skilfully done here had been
also done in the Capellas Imperfeitas at Batalha.
At the north end of the main transept are two doors, one leading to the
cloister and one to the sacristy. A straight and curved moulding
surrounds their trefoil heads under a double twining hood-mould.
Outside, other mouldings rise high above the whole to form a second
large trefoil, whose hood-mould curves into two great crocketed circles
before rising to a second ogee.
The chancel has a round and the chapels pointed entrance arches, formed,
as are the jambs, of two bands of carving and two thick twisted
mouldings. Tomb recesses, added later, with strapwork pediments line the
chapels, and at the entrance to the chancel are two pulpits, for the
Gospel and Epistle. These are rather like Joao de Ruao's pulpit at
Coimbra in outline, but supported on a large capital are quite Gothic,
as are the large canopies which rise above them.
Strong arches with cable mouldings lead to the space under the gallery,
which is supported by an elaborate vault, elliptical in the central and
pointed in the side aisles.
In the gallery itself--only to be entered from the upper cloister--are
the choir stalls, of Brazil wood, added in 1560, perhaps from the
designs of Diogo da Carta.[134]
With the earlier stalls at Santa Cruz and at Funchal, and the later at
Evora, these are almost the only ones left which have not been replaced
by rococo extravagances.
The back is divided into large panels three stalls wide, each containing
a painting of a saint, and separated by panelled and carved Corinthian
pilasters. Below each painting is an oblong panel with, in the centre, a
beautifully carved head looking out of a circle, and at the sides bold
carvings of leaves, dragons, sirens, or animals, while beautiful figures
of saints stand in round-headed niches under the pilasters. At the ends
are larger pilasters, and a cornice carried on corbels serves as canopy.
Each of the lower stalls has a carved panel under the upper book-board,
but the small figures which stood between them on the arms are nearly
all gone.
If 1560 be the real date, the carving is extraordinarily early in
character; the execution too is excellent, though perhaps the heads
under the paintings are on too large a scale for woodwork, still they
are not at all coarse, and would be worthy of the best Spanish or French
sculptors.
The cloister, nearly, but not quite square, has six bays on each side,
of which the four central bays are of four lights each, while narrower
ones at the ends have no tracery. In the traceried bays the arches are
slightly elliptical, subdivided by two round-headed arches, which in
turn enclose two smaller round arches enriched some with trefoil cusps,
some with curious hanging pieces of tracery which are put, not in the
middle, but a little to the side nearer the central shaft. The shafts
are round, very like those at Batalha, and, like every inch of the arch
and tracery mouldings, are covered with ornament; some are twisted, some
diapered, some covered with renaissance detail. Broad bands too of
carving run round the inside and the outside of the main arches, the
inner being almost renaissance and the outer purely Manoelino. The vault
of many ribs, varying in arrangement in the different walks, is entirely
Gothic, while all the doors--except the double opening leading to the
chapter-house, which has beautifully carved renaissance panels on the
jambs--are Manoelino. The untraceried openings at the ends are fringed
with very extraordinary lobed projections, and on the solid pieces of
walling at the corners are carved very curious and interesting coats of
arms crosses and emblems worked in with beautifully cut leaves and
birds. (Figs. 66 and 67.)
Outside, between each bay, wide buttresses project, of which the
front--formed into a square pilaster--is enriched with panels of
beautiful renaissance work, while the back part is fluted or panelled.
From the top mouldings of these pilasters, rather higher than the
capitals of the openings, elliptical arches with a vault behind are
thrown across from pier to pier with excellent effect. Now, the base
mouldings of these panelled pilasters either do not quite fit those of
the fluted strips behind, or else are cut off against them, as are also
the top mouldings of the fluted part; further, the fluted part runs up
rather awkwardly into the vault, so that it seems reasonable to
conjecture that these square renaissance pilasters and the arches may be
an after-thought, added because it was found that the original
buttresses were not quite strong enough for their work, and this too
would account for the purely renaissance character of the carving on
them, while the rest is almost entirely Gothic or Manoelino. The arches
are carried diagonally across the corners, in a very picturesque manner,
and they all help to keep out the direct sunlight and to throw most
effective shadows.
The parapet above these arches is carved with very pleasing renaissance
details, and above each pier rise a niche and saint.
The upper cloister is simpler than the lower. All the arches are round
with a big splay on each side carved with four-leaved flowers. They are
cusped at the top, and at the springing two smaller cusped arches are
thrown across to a pinnacled shaft in the centre. The buttresses between
them are covered with spiral grooves, and are all finished off with
twisted pinnacles. Inside the pointed vault is much simpler than in the
walks below.
Here the tracery is very much less elaborate than in the Claustro Real
at Batalha, but as scarcely a square inch of the whole cloister is left
uncarved the effect is much more disturbed and so less pleasing.
Beautiful though most of the ornament is, there is too much of it, and
besides, the depressed shape of the lower arches is bad and ungraceful,
and the attempt at tracery in the upper walks is more curious than
successful.
The chapter-house too, though a large and splendid room, would have
looked better with a simpler vault and without the elliptical arches of
the apse recesses.
The refectory, without any other ornament than the bold ribs of its
vaulted roof, and a dado of late tiles, is far more pleasing.
Altogether, splendid as it is, Belem is far less pleasing, outside at
least, than the contemporary work at Batalha or at Thomar, for, like the
tower of Sao Vicente near by, it is wanting in those perfect proportions
which more than richness of detail give charm to a building. Inside it
is not so, and though many of the vaulting ribs might be criticised as
useless
[Illustration: FIG. 66.
BELEM.
CLOISTER.]
[Illustration: FIG. 67.
BELEM.
LOWER CLOISTER.]
and the whole vault as wanting in simplicity, yet there is no such
impressive interior in Portugal and not many elsewhere.
The very over-elaboration which spoils the cloister is only one of the
results of all the wealth which flowed in from the East, and so, like
the whole monastery, is a worthy memorial of all that had been done to
further exploration from the time of Prince Henry, till his efforts were
crowned with success by Vasco da Gama.
[Sidenote: Conceicao, Velha.]
There can be little doubt that the transept front of the church of the
Conceicao Velha was also designed by Joao de Castilho. The church was
built after 1520 on the site of a synagogue, and was almost entirely
destroyed by the earthquake of 1755. Only the transept front has
survived, robbed of its cornice and cresting, and now framed in plain
pilasters and crowned by a pediment. The two windows, very like those at
Belem, have beautiful renaissance details and saints in niches on the
jambs.
The large door has a round arch with uprights at the sides rising to a
horizontal crested moulding. Below, these uprights have a band of
renaissance carving on the outer side, and in front a canopied niche
with a well-modelled figure. Above they become semicircular and end in
sphere-bearing spirelets. The great round arch is filled with two orders
of mouldings, one a broad strip of arabesque, the other a series of
kneeling angels below and of arabesque above. The actual openings are
formed of two round-headed arches whose outer mouldings cross each other
on the central jamb. Above them are two reversed semicircles, and then a
great tympanum carved with a figure of Our Lady sheltering popes,
bishops, and saints under her robe: a carving which seems to have lately
taken the place of a large window. (Fig. 68.)
As it now stands the front is not pleasing. It is too wide, and the
great spreading pediment is very ugly. Of course it ought not to be
judged by its present appearance, and yet it must be admitted that the
windows are too large and come too near the ground, and that much of the
detail is coarse. Still it is of interest if only because it is the only
surviving building closely related to the church of Belem. Built perhaps
to commemorate the expulsion of the Jews, it shared the fate of the
Jesuits who instigated the expulsion, and was destroyed only a few years
before they were driven from the country by the Marques de Pombal.