THE COMING OF THE FOREIGN ARTISTS
If Joao de Castilho and his brother Diogo were really natives of one of
the Basque provinces, they might rightly be included among the foreign
artists who played such an important part in Portugal towards the end of
Dom Manoel's reign and the beginning of that of his son, Dom Joao III.
Yet the earlier work of Joao de Castilho at Thomar shows little trace of
that renaissance influence which the foreigners, and especially the
Frenchmen, were to do so much to introduce.
[Sidenote: Santa Cruz, Coimbra.]
A great house of the Canon Regular of St. Augustine had been founded at
Coimbra by Dom Affonso Henriques for his friend Sao Theotonio in 1131.
But with the passage of centuries the church and monastic building of
Sta. Cruz had become dilapidated, and were no longer deemed worthy of so
wealthy and important a body. So in 1502 Dom Manoel determined to
rebuild them and to adorn the church, and it was for this adorning that
he summoned so many sculptors in stone and in wood to his aid.
The first architect of the church was Marcos Pires, to whom are due the
cloister and the whole church except the west door, which was finished
by his successor Diogo de Castilho with the help of Master Nicolas, a
Frenchman.
One Gregorio Lourenco seems to have been what would now be called master
of the works, and from his letters to Dom Manoel we learn how the work
was going on. After Dom Manoel's death in 1521 he writes to Dom Joao
III., telling him what, of all the many things his father the late king
had ordered, was already finished and what was still undone.
The church consists of a nave of four bays, measuring some 105 feet by
39, with flanking chapels, the whole lined with eighteenth-century
tiles, mostly blue and white. There are also a great choir gallery at
the west end, a chancel, polygonal
[Illustration: FIG. 68.
LISBON.
CONCEICAO VELHA.]
within but square outside, 54 feet long by 20 broad, with a
seventeenth-century sacristy to the south, a cloister to the north, and
chapels, one of which was the chapter-house, forming a kind of passage
from sacristy to cloister behind the chancel.
By 1518 the church must have been already well advanced, for in January
of that year Gregorio Lourenco writes to Dom Manoel saying that 'the
wall of the dormitory was shaken and therefore I have sent for "Pere
Anes"--Pedro Annes had been master builder of the royal palace, now the
university at Coimbra, and being older may have had more experience than
Marcos Pires, the designer of the monastery--who had it shored up, and
they say that after the vault of the cloister is finished and the wooden
floors in it will be quite safe. Also six days ago came the master of
the reredos from Seville and set to work at once to finish the great
reredos, for which he has worked all the wood--he must surely have
brought it with him from Seville--but the glazier has not yet come to
finish the windows.'
[Illustration: PLAN OF STA. CRUZ]
On 22nd July following he writes again that all but one of the vaults of
the cloister were finished--'and Marcos Pirez works well, and the master
of the reredos has finished the tabernacle, and the "cadeiras" [that is
probably, sedilia] and the bishop has come to see them and they are very
good, and the master who is making the tombs of the kings is working at
his job, and has already much stonework.'
These tombs of the kings are the monuments of Dom Affonso Henriques on
the north wall of the chancel and of Dom Sancho I. on the south. The two
first kings of Portugal had originally been buried in front of the old
church, and were now for the first time given monuments worthy of their
importance in the history of their country.
In 1521 Dom Manoel died, and next year Gregorio tells his successor what
his father had ordered; after speaking of the pavement, the vault of Sao
Theotonio's Chapel, the dormitory with its thirty beds and its
fireplace, the refectory, the royal tombs and a great screen twenty-five
palms, or about eighteen feet high, he comes to the pulpit--'This, Sir,
which is finished, all who see it say, that in Spain there is no piece
of stone of better workmanship, for this 20$000 have been paid,' leaving
some money still due.
He then speaks of the different reredoses, tombs of two priors, silver
candlesticks, a great silver cross made by Eytor Gonsalves, a goldsmith
of Lisbon, much other church plate, and then goes on to say that a
lectern was ordered for the choir but was not made and was much needed,
as was a silver monstrance, and that the monastery had no money to pay
Christovam de Figueiredo for painting the great reredos of the high
altar and those of the other chapels, 'and, Sir, it is necessary that
they should be painted.'
Besides making so many gifts to Sta. Cruz, Dom Manoel endowed it with
many privileges. The priors were exempt from the jurisdiction of the
bishop, and had themselves complete control over their own dependent
churches. All the canons were chaplains to the king, and after the
university came back to Coimbra from Lisbon in 1539 Dom Joao III. made
the priors perpetual chancellors.[135]
By 1522 then the church must have been practically ready, though some
carving still had to be done.
Marcos Pires died in 1524 and was succeeded by Diogo de Castilho, and in
a letter dated from Evora in that year the king orders a hundred gold
cruzados to be paid to Diogo and to Master Nicolas[136] for the statues
on the west door which were still wanting, and two years later in
September another letter granted Diogo the privilege of riding on a
mule.[137]
The interest of the church itself is very inferior to that of the
different pieces of church furniture, nearly all the work of foreigners,
with which it was adorned, and of which some, though not all, survive to
the present day.
Inside there is nothing very remarkable in the structure of the church
except the fine vaulting with its many moulded ribs, the large windows
with their broken Manoelino heads, and the choir gallery which occupies
nearly two bays at the west end. Vaulted underneath, it opens to the
church by a large elliptical arch which springs from jambs ornamented
with beautiful candelabrum shafts.
Of the outside little is to be seen except the west front, one of the
least successful designs of that period.
In the centre--now partly blocked up by eighteenth-century additions,
and sunk several feet below the street--is a great moulded arch, about
eighteen feet across and once divided into two by a central jamb bearing
a figure of Our Lord, whence the door was called 'Portal da Majestade';
above the arch a large round-headed window, deeply recessed, lights the
choir gallery, and between it and the top of the arch are three
renaissance niches, divided by pilasters, and containing three
figures--doubtless some of those for which Diogo de Castilho and Master
Nicolas were paid one hundred cruzados in 1524. The window with its
mouldings is much narrower than the door, and is joined to the tall
pinnacles which rise to the right and left of the great opening by
Gothic flying buttresses. Between the side pinnacles and the central
mass of the window a curious rounded and bent shaft rises from the
hood-mould of the door to end in a semi-classic column between two
niches, and from the shaft there grow out two branches to support the
corbels on which the niche statues stand. All this is very like the
great south door of the Jeronymite monastery at Belem, the work of
Diogo's brother Joao de Castilho; both have a wide door below with a
narrower window above, surrounded by a mass of pinnacles and statues,
but here the lower door is far too wide, and the upper window too small,
and besides the wall is set back a foot or two immediately on each side
of the window so that the surface is more broken up. Again, instead of
the whole rising up with a great pinnacled niche to pierce the cornice
and to dominate parapet and cresting, the drip-mould of the window only
gives a few ugly twists, and leaves a blank space between the window
head and the straight line of the cornice and parapet; a line in no way
improved by the tall rustic cross or the four broken pinnacles which
rise above it. Straight crested parapets also crown the wall where it is
set back, but at the sides the two corners grow into eight-sided turrets
ending in low crocketed stone roofs. Of course the whole front has
suffered much from the raising of the street level, but it can never
have been beautiful, for the setting back of part of the wall looks
meaningless, and the turrets are too small for towers and yet far too
large for angle pinnacles. (Fig. 69.)
Although the soft stone is terribly perished, greater praise can be
given to the smaller details, especially to the figures, which show
traces of considerable vigour and skill.
If the church shows that Marcos Pires was not a great architect, the
cloister still more marks his inferiority to the Fernandes or to Joao de
Castilho, though with its central fountain and its garden it is
eminently picturesque. Part of it is now, and probably all once was, of
two stories. The buttresses are picturesque, polygonal below, a cluster
of rounded shafts above, and are carried up in front of the upper
cloister to end in a large cross. All the openings have segmental
pointed heads with rather poor mouldings. Each is subdivided into two
lights with segmental round heads, supporting a vesica-like opening. All
the shafts are round, with round moulded bases and round Manoelino caps.
The central shaft has a ring moulding half-way up, and all, including
the flat arches and the vesicae, are either covered with leaves, or are
twisted into ropes, but without any of that wonderful delicacy which is
so striking at Batalha. Across one corner a vault has been thrown
covering a fountain, and though elsewhere the ribs are plainly moulded,
here they are covered with leaf carving, and altogether make this
north-east corner the most picturesque part of the whole cloister. (Fig.
70.)
The upper walk with its roof of wood is much simpler, there being three
flat arches to each bay upheld by short round shafts.
Now to turn from the church itself and its native builders to the
beautiful furniture provided for it by foreign skill. Much of it has
vanished. The church plate when it became unfashionable was sent to Goa,
the great metal screen made by Antonius Fernandes is gone, and so is the
reredos carved by a master from Seville and painted by Christovao de
Figueredo. There still hang on the wall of the sacristy two or three
[Illustration: FIG. 69.
COIMBRA.
WEST FRONT OF STA. CRUZ.]
[Illustration: FIG. 70.
COIMBRA.
CLOISTER OF STA. CRUZ.]
pictures which may have formed part of this reredos. They are high up
and very dirty, but seem to have considerable merit, especially one of
'Pentecost' which is signed 'Velascus.' The 'Pentecost' still has for
its frame some pieces of beautiful early renaissance moulding not unlike
what may still be seen on the reredos at Funchal, and it is just the
size of a panel for a large reredos. Of course 'Velascus' is not Grao
Vasco, though the name is the same, nor can he be Christovao de
Figueredo, but perhaps the painting spoken of by Gregorio Lourenco as
done by Christovao may only have been of the framing and not necessarily
of the panels.
These are gone, but there are still left the royal tombs, the choir
stalls, the pulpit, and three beautiful carved altar-pieces in the
cloister.
The royal tombs are both practically alike. In each the king lies under
a great round arch, on a high altar-tomb, on whose front, under an egg
and tongue moulding a large scroll bearing an inscription is upheld by
winged children. The arch is divided into three bands of carving,
one--the widest--carved with early renaissance designs, the next which
is also carried down the jambs, with very rich Gothic foliage, and the
outermost with more leaves. The back of each tomb is divided into three
by tall Gothic pinnacles, and contains three statues on elaborate
corbels and under very intricate canopies, of which the central rises in
a spire to the top of the arch.
On the jambs, under the renaissance band of carving, are two statues one
above the other on Gothic corbels but under renaissance canopies.
Beyond the arch great piers rise up with three faces separated by Gothic
pinnacles. On each face there is at the bottom--above the
interpenetrating bases--a classic medallion encompassed by Manoelino
twisting stems and leaves, and higher up two statues one above the
other. Of these the lower stands on a Gothic corbel under a renaissance
canopy, and the upper, standing on the canopy, has over it another tall
canopy Gothic in style. Higher up the piers rise up to the vault with
many pinnacles and buttresses, and between them, above the arch, are
other figures in niches and two angels holding the royal arms.
The design of the whole is still very Manoelino, and therefore the
master of the royal tombs spoken of by Gregorio Lourenco was probably a
Portuguese, but the skill shown in modelling the figures and the
renaissance details are something quite new. (Fig. 71.)
Many Frenchmen are known to have worked in Santa Cruz. One, Master
Nicolas, has been met already working at Belem and at the west door
here, and others--Longuim, Philipo Uduarte, and finally Joao de Ruao
(Jean de Rouen)--are spoken of as having worked at the tombs.
Though the figures are good with well-modelled draperies, their faces,
or those of most of them, are rather expressionless, and some of them
look too short--all indeed being less successful than those on the
pulpit, the work of Joao de Ruao. It is likely then that the figures are
mostly the work of the lesser known men and not of Master Nicolas or of
Joao de Ruao, though Joao, who came later to Portugal, may have been
responsible for some of the renaissance canopies which are not at all
unlike some of his work on the pulpit.
The pulpit projects from the north wall of the church between two of the
chapels. In shape it is a half-octagon set diagonally, and is upheld by
circular corbelling. It was ready by the time Gregorio Lourenco wrote to
Dom Joao III. in 1522, but still wanted a suitable finishing to its
door. This Gregorio urged Dom Joao to add, but it was never done, and
now the entrance is only framed by a simple classic architrave.
Now Georges d'Amboise, the second archbishop of that name to hold the
see of Rouen, began the beautiful tomb, on which he and his uncle kneel
in prayer, in the year 1520, and the pulpit at Coimbra was finished
before March 1522.
Among the workmen employed on this tomb a Jean de Rouen is mentioned,
but he left in 1521. The detail of the tomb at Rouen and that of the
pulpit here are alike in their exceeding fineness and beauty, and a man
thought worthy of taking part in the carving of the tomb might well be
able to carry out the pulpit; besides, on it are cut initials or signs
which have been read as J.R.[138] The J or I is distinct, the R much
less so, but the carver of the pulpit was certainly a Frenchman well
acquainted with the work of the French renaissance. It may therefore be
accepted with perhaps some likelihood, that the Jean de Rouen who left
Normandy in 1521, came then to Coimbra, carved this pulpit, and is the
same who as Joao de Ruao is mentioned in later documents as
[Illustration: FIG. 71.
COIMBRA, STA. CRUZ.
TOMB OF D. SANCHO I.]
[Illustration: FIG. 72.
COIMBRA.
STA. CRUZ.
PULPIT.]
still working for Santa Cruz, where he signed a discharge as late as
1549.[139]
The whole pulpit is but small, not more than about five feet high
including the corbelled support, and all carved with a minuteness and
delicacy not to be surpassed and scarcely to be equalled by such a work
as the tomb at Rouen. At the top is a finely moulded cornice enriched
with winged heads, tiny egg and tongue and other carving. Below on each
of the four sides are niches whose shell tops rest on small pilasters
all covered with the finest ornaments, and in each niche sits a Father
of the Western Church, St. Augustine, St. Jerome, St. Gregory, and St.
Ambrose. Their feet rest on slightly projecting bases, on the front of
each of which is a small panel measuring about four inches by two carved
with tiny figures and scenes in slight relief. On the shell heads, which
project a little in the centre, there stand, above St. Augustine three
minute figures of boys with wreaths, the figures being about three or
four inches high, above St. Jerome sit two others, with masks hanging
from their arms, upholding a shield and a cross of the Order of Christ.
Those above St. Gregory support a sphere, and above St. Ambrose one
stands alone with a long-necked bird on each side. At each angle two
figures, one above the other, each about eight inches high, stand under
canopies the delicacy of whose carving could scarcely be surpassed in
ivory. They represent, above, Religion with Faith, Hope, and Charity,
and below, four prophets. The corbelled support is made up of a great
many different mouldings, most of them enriched in different ways.
Near the top under the angles of the pulpit are beautiful cherubs'
heads. About half-way down creatures with wings and human heads capped
with winged helmets grow out of a mass of flat carving, and at the very
bottom is a kind of winged dragon whose five heads stretch up across the
lower mouldings. (Fig. 72.)
Altogether the pulpit is well worthy of the praise given it by Gregorio;
there may be more elaborate pieces of carving in Spain, but scarcely one
so beautiful in design and in execution, and indeed it may almost be
doubted whether France itself can produce a finer piece of work. The
figure sculpture is worthy of the best French artists, the whole design
is elaborate, but not too much so, considering the smallness of the
scale, and the execution is such as could only have been carried out in
alabaster or the finest limestone, such as that found at Anca not far
off, and used at Coimbra for all delicate work.[140]
In the discharge signed by Joao de Ruao in 1549 reredoses are spoken of
as worked by him. There is nothing in the document to show whether these
are the three great pieces of sculpture in the cloisters each of which
must once have been meant for a reredos. Unfortunately in the
seventeenth century they were walled up, and were only restored to view
not many years ago, and though much destroyed, enough survives to show
that they were once worthy of the pulpit.
They represent 'Christ shown to the people by Pilate,' the 'Bearing of
the Cross,' and the 'Entombment.'
In each there is at the bottom a shelf narrower than the carving above,
and uniting the two, a broad band wider at the top than at the bottom,
most exquisitely carved in very slight relief, with lovely early
renaissance scrolls, and with winged boys holding shields or medallions
in the centre. Above is a large square framework, flanked at the sides
by tall candelabrum shafts on corbels, and finished at the top by a
moulding or, above the 'Bearing of the Cross,' by a crested entablature,
with beautifully carved frieze. Within this framework the stone is cut
back with sloping sides, carved with architectural detail, arches,
doors, entablatures in perspective. At the top is a panelled canopy.
In the 'Ecce Homo' on the left is a flight of steps leading up to the
judgment seat of Pilate, who sits under a large arch, with Our Lord and
a soldier on his right. The other half of the composition has a large
arch in the background, and in front a crowd of people some of whom are
seen coming through the opening in the sloping side.
In the 'Bearing of the Cross' the background is taken up by the walls
and towers of Jerusalem. Our Lord with a great T-shaped cross is in the
centre, with St. Veronica on the right and a great crowd of people
behind, while other persons look out of the perspective arches at the
side. (Fig. 73.)
In all, especially perhaps in the 'Ecce Homo,' the composition is good,
and the modelling of the figures excellent. Unfortunately the faces are
much decayed and perhaps the figures may be rather wanting in repose,
and yet even in their decay they are very beautiful pieces of work, and
show that Joao de Ruao--if he it was who carved them--was as able to
design a large composition as to carve a small pulpit. Under the 'Ecce
Homo,' in a tablet held by winged boys who grow out of the ends of the
scrolls, there is a date which seems to read 1550. The 'Quitacam' was
signed on the 11th of September 1549, and if 1550 is the date here
carved it may show when the work was finally completed.[141]
There once stood in the refectory a terra cotta group of the 'Last
Supper.' Now nothing is left but a few fragments in the Museum, but
there too the figures of the apostles were well modelled and well
executed.
Of the other works ordered by Dom Manoel the only one which still
remains are the splendid stalls in the western choir gallery. These in
two tiers of seats run round the three walls of the gallery except where
interrupted by the large west window. They can hardly be the 'cadeiras'
or seats mentioned in Gregorio's letter of July 1518, for it is surely
impossible that they should have been begun in January and finished in
July however active the Seville master may have been, and judging from
their carving they seem more Flemish than Spanish, and we know that
Flemings had been working not very long before on the cathedral reredos.
The lower tier of seats has Gothic panelling below, good Miserere seats,
arms, on each of which sits a monster, and on the top between each and
supporting the book-board of the upper row, small figures of men, with
bowed backs, beggars, pilgrims, men and women all most beautifully
carved. The panels behind the upper tier are divided by twisted
Manoelino shafts bearing Gothic pinnacles, and the upper part of each
panel is enriched with deeply undercut leaves and finials surrounding
armillary spheres. Above the panels, except over the end stalls where
sat the Dom Prior and the other dignitaries, and which have higher
canopies, there runs a continuous canopy panelled with Gothic
quatrefoils, and having in front a fringe of interlacing cusps. Between
this and the cresting is a beautiful carved cornice of leaves and of
crosses of the Order of Christ, and the cresting itself is formed by a
number of carved scenes, cities, forests, ships, separated by saintly
figures and surmounted by a carved band from which grow up great curling
leaves and finials. These scenes are supposed to represent the great
discoveries of Vasco da Gama and of Pedro Alvares Cabral in India and in
Brazil, but if this is really so the carvers must have been left to
their own imagination, for the towns do not look particularly Indian,
nor do the forests suggest the tropical luxuriance of Brazil: perhaps
the small three-masted ships alone, with their high bows and stern,
represent the reality. (Fig. 74.)
As a whole the design is entirely Gothic, only at the ends of each row
of stalls is there anything else, and there the panels are carved with
renaissance arabesque, which, being gilt like all the other carving,
stands out well from the dark brown background.
These are almost the only mediaeval stalls left in the country. Those at
Thomar were burnt by the French, those in the Carmo at Lisbon destroyed
by the earthquake, and those at Alcobaca have disappeared. Only at
Funchal are there stalls of the same date, for those at Vizeu seem
rather later and are certainly poorer, their chief interest now being
derived from the old Chinese stamped paper with which their panels are
covered.
[Sidenote: Coimbra, Se Velha.]
If the stalls at Santa Cruz are the only examples of this period still
left on the mainland, the Se Velha possesses the only great mediaeval
reredos. In Spain great structures are found in almost every cathedral
rising above the altar to the vault in tier upon tier of niche and
panel. Richly gilded, with fine paintings on the panels, with delicate
Gothic pinnacles and tabernacle work, they and the metal screens which
half hide them do much to make Spanish churches the most interesting in
the world. Unfortunately in Portugal the bad taste of the eighteenth
century has replaced all those that may have existed by great and heavy
erections of elaborately carved wood. All covered with gold, the
Corinthian columns, twisted and wreathed with vines, the overloaded
arches and elaborate entablatures are now often sadly out of place in
some old interior, and make one grieve the more over the loss of the
simpler or more appropriate reredos which came before them.
Dom Jorge d'Almeida held the see of Coimbra and the countship of
Arganil--for the bishops are always counts of
[Illustration: FIG. 73.
COIMBRA.
STA. CRUZ.
REREDOS IN CLOISTER.]
[Illustration: FIG. 74.
COIMBRA.
STALLS, STA. CRUZ.]
Arganil--from 1481 till 1543, when he died at the age of eighty-five;
during these sixty-two years he did much to beautify his church, and of
these additions the oldest is the reredos put up in 1508. This we learn
from a 'quitaca' or discharge granted in that year to 'Mestre Vlimer
framengo, ora estante nesta cidada, e seu Parceiro Joao Dipri,' that is,
to 'Master Vlimer a Fleming, now in this city, and to his partner John
of Ypres.'
The reredos stands well back in the central apse; it is divided into
five upright parts, of which that in the centre is twice as wide as any
of the others, while the outermost with the strips of panelling and
carving which come beyond them are canted, following the line of the
apse wall. Across these five upright divisions and in a straight line is
thrown a great flattened trefoil arch joined to the back with Gothic
vaulting. In the middle over the large division it is fringed with the
intersecting circles of curved branches, while from the top to the
blue-painted apse vault with its gilded ribs and stars a forest of
pinnacles, arches, twisting and intertwining branches and leaves rises
high above the bishop's arms and mitre and the two angels who uphold
them.
Below the arch the five parts are separated by pinnacle rising above
pinnacle. At the bottom under long canopies of extraordinary elaboration
are scenes in high relief. Above them in the middle the apostles watch
the Assumption of the Virgin; saints stand in the other divisions, one
in each, and over their heads are immense canopies rising across a
richly cusped background right up to the vaulting of the arch. Though
not so high, the canopy over the Virgin is far more intricate as it
forms a great curve made up of seven little cusped arches with
innumerable pinnacles and spires. (Fig. 75.)
Being the work of Flemings, the reredos is naturally full of that
exuberant Flemish detail which may be seen in a Belgian town-hall or in
the work of an early Flemish painter; and if the stalls at Santa Cruz
are not by this same Master Vlimer, the intertwining branches on the
cresting and the sharply carved leaves on the panels show that he had
followers or pupils.
Like most Flemish productions, the reredos is wanting in grace. Though
it throws a fine deep shadow the great arch is very ugly in shape and
the great canopies are far too large, and yet the mass of gold, well lit
by the windows of the lantern and rising to the dim blue vault, makes a
singularly fine ending to the old and solemn church.
More important than the reredos in the art history of the country are
some other changes made by Dom Jorge, which show that the Frenchmen
working at Santa Cruz were soon employed elsewhere.
On the north side of the nave a door leads out of the church, and this
these Frenchmen entirely transformed.
At the bottom, between two much decayed Corinthian pilasters, is the
door reached by a flight of steps. The arch is of several orders, one
supported by thin columns, one by square fluted pilasters. Within these,
at right angles to each other, are broad faces carved and resting on
piers at whose corners are tiny round columns, in two stories, with
carved reliefs between the upper pair. In the tympanum is a beautiful
Madonna and Child, and two round medallions with heads adorn the
spandrils above the arch. Beyond each pilaster is a canted side joining
the porch to the wall and having a large niche and figure near the top.
The whole surface has been covered with exquisite arabesques like those
below the reredoses in the cloister at Santa Cruz, but they have now
almost entirely perished.
Above the entablature a second story rises forming a sort of portico. At
the corners are square fluted Corinthian pilasters; between them in
front runs a balustrading, divided into three by the pedestals of two
slender columns, Corinthian also, and there are others next the
pilasters. The entablature has been most delicate, with the finest
wreaths carved on the frieze. Over the canted sides are built small
round-domed turrets.
Above this the third story reaches nearly up to the top of the wall. In
the middle is an arch resting on slender columns and supporting a
pediment; on either side are square niches with columns at the sides,
beyond them fan-shaped semicircles, and at the corners vases. Behind
this there rise to the top of the battlements four panelled Doric
pilasters with cornice above, and two deep round-headed niches with
figures, one on each side.
Inside the church are pilasters and a wealth of delicate relief.
Perhaps the whole may not be much more fortunate than most attempts to
build up a tall composition by piling columns one above the other, and
the top part is certainly too heavy
[Illustration: FIG. 75.
COIMBRA.
SE VELHA.
REREDOS.]
[Illustration: FIG. 76.
COIMBRA.
SE VELHA.
CHAPEL OF SAO PEDRO.]
for what comes below it. Yet the details are or were beautiful, and the
portico above the door most graceful and pleasing, though, being
unfortunately on the north side, the effect is lost of the deep shadow
the sun would have thrown and the delicacy of the mouldings almost
wasted.
Less important are the changes made to the north transept door. Fluted
pilasters and Corinthian columns were inserted below, a medallion with a
figure cut on the tympanum, and small coupled shafts resting on the
Doric capitals of the pilasters built to uphold the entablature.
Inside the most important, as well as the most beautiful addition, was a
reredos built by Dom Jorge as his monument in the chapel of Sao Pedro,
the small apse to the north of the high altar.
Just above the altar table--which is of stone supported on one central
shaft--are three panels filled in high relief with sculptured scenes
from the life of St. Peter, the central and widest panel representing
his martyrdom, while on the uprights between them are small figures
under canopies.
The upper and larger part is arranged somewhat like a Roman triumphal
arch. There are three arches, one larger and higher in the middle, with
a lower and narrower one on each side, separated by most beautiful tall
candelabrum shafts with very delicate half-Ionic capitals. In the
centre, in front of the representation of some town, probably Rome, is
Our Lord bearing His Cross and St. Peter kneeling at His feet--no doubt
the well-known legend 'Domine quo vadis?' In the side arches stand two
figures with books: one is St. Paul with a sword, and the other probably
St. Peter himself. Above each of the side arches there is a small
balustraded loggia, scarcely eighteen inches high, in each of which are
two figures, talking, all marvellously lifelike. Beautiful carvings
enrich the friezes everywhere, and small heads in medallions all the
spandrils. At the top, in a hollow circle upheld by carved supports,
crowned and bearing an orb in His left hand, is God the Father Himself.
(Fig. 76.)
Less elaborate than the pulpit and less pictorial than the altar-pieces
in the cloister of Santa Cruz, this reredos is one of the most
successful of all the French works at Coimbra, and its beauty is
enhanced by the successful lighting through a large window cut on
purpose at the side, and by the beautiful tiles--probably
contemporary--with which the chapel is lined.
In front of the altar lies Dom Jorge d'Almeida, under a flat stone,
bearing his arms, and this inscription in Latin, 'Here lies Jorge
d'Almeida by the goodness of the divine power bishop and count. He lived
eighty-five years, and died eight days before the Kalends of Sextillis
A.D. 1543, having held both dignities sixty-two years.'