Chapter 25

LATER GOTHIC

During the last ten or fifteen years of the fifteenth century there was great activity in building throughout almost the whole country, but it now becomes almost impossible to take the different buildings in chronological order, because at this time so many different schools began to struggle for supremacy. There was first the Gothic school which, though increasing in elaboration of detail, went on in some places almost uninfluenced by any breath of the renaissance, as for instance in the porch and chancel of Braga Cathedral, not built till about 1532. Elsewhere this Gothic was affected partly by Spanish and partly by Moorish influence, and gradually grew into that most curious and characteristic of styles, commonly called Manoelino, from Dom Manoel under whom Portugal reached the summit of its prosperity. In other places, again, Gothic forms and renaissance details came gradually to be used together, as at Belem.

To take then first those buildings in which Gothic detail was but little influenced by the approaching renaissance.

[Sidenote: Graça, Santarem.]

One of the earliest of these is the west front, added towards the end of the fifteenth century to that Augustinian church of the Graça at Santarem whose roof the Devil knocked down in 1548. Here the ends of the side aisles are, now at any rate, quite plain, but in the centre there is a very elaborate doorway with a large rose-window above. It is easy to see that this doorway has not been uninfluenced by Batalha. From well-moulded jambs, each of which has four shafts, there springs a large pointed arch, richly fringed with cusping on its inner side. Two of its many mouldings are enriched with smaller cuspings, and one, the outermost, with a line of wavy tracery, while the whole ends in a crocketed ogee. Above the arch is a strip of shallow panelling, enclosed, as is the whole doorway, in a square moulded frame. May it not be that this square frame is due to the almost universal Moorish habit of setting an archway in a square frame, as may be seen at Cordoba and in the palace windows at Cintra? The rest of the gable is perfectly plain but for the round window, filled with elaborate spiral flowing tracery. Here, though the details are more French than national, there is a good example of the excellent result so often reached by later Portuguese--and Spanish--builders, who concentrated all their elaborate ornament on one part of the building while leaving the rest absolutely plain--often as here plastered and whitewashed.

[Sidenote: São João Baptista, Thomar.]

Not long after this front was built, Dom Manoel in 1494 began a new parish church at Thomar, that of São João Baptista. The plan of this church is that which has already become so familiar: a nave and aisles with wooden roof and vaulted chancel and chapels to the east, with here, the addition of a tower and spire to the north of the west front. The inside calls for little notice: the arches are pointed, and the capitals carved with not very good foliage, but the west front is far more interesting. As at the Graça it is plastered and whitewashed, but ends not in a gable but in a straight line of cresting like Batalha, though here there is no flat terrace behind, but a sloping tile roof. At the bottom is a large ogee doorway whose tympanum is pierced with tracery and whose mouldings are covered with most beautiful and deeply undercut foliage. The outside of the arch is crocketed, and ends in a tall finial thrust through the horizontal and crested moulding which, as at the Graça, sets the whole in a square frame. There are also doorways in the same style half-way along the north and south sides of the church. The only other openings on the west front are a plain untraceried circle above the door, and a simple ogee-headed window at the end of each aisle.

The tower, which is not whitewashed, rises as a plain unadorned square to a little above the aisle roof, then turns to an octagon with, at the top, a plain belfry window on each face. Above these runs a corbelled gallery within which springs an octagonal spire cut into three by two bands of ornament, and ending in a large armillary sphere, that emblem of all the discoveries made during his reign, which Dom Manoel put on to every building with which he had anything to do.

Inside the chapels are as usual overloaded with huge reredoses of heavily carved and gilt wood, but the original pulpit still survives, a most beautiful example of the finest late Gothic carving. It consists of four sides of an octagon, and stands on ribs which curve outwards from a central shaft. Round the bottom runs a band of foliage most marvellously undercut, above this are panels separated the one from the other by slender pinnacles, and the whole ends in a cornice even more delicately carved than is the base. At the top of each panel is some intricate tabernacle work, below which there is on one the Cross of the Order of Christ, on another the royal arms, with a coronet above which stands out quite clear of the panel, and on a third there has been the armillary sphere, now unfortunately quite broken off. But even more interesting than this pulpit itself is the comparison between its details and those of the nave or Coro added about the same time to the Templar church on the hill behind. Here all is purely Gothic, there there is a mixture of Gothic and renaissance details, and towards the west front an exuberance of carving which cannot be called either Gothic or anything else, so strange and unusual is it.

[Sidenote: Villa do Conde.]

Another church of almost exactly the same date is that of São João Baptista, the Matriz of Villa do Conde. The plan shows a nave and aisles of five bays, large transeptal chapels, and an apsidal chancel projecting beyond the two square chapels by which it is flanked. As usual the nave and aisles have a wooden roof, only the chancel and chapels being vaulted. There is also a later tower at the west end of the north aisle, and a choir gallery across the west end of the church. Throughout the original windows are very narrow and round-headed, and there is in the north-western bay a pointed door, differing only from those of about a hundred years earlier in having twisted shafts. One curious feature is the parapet of the central aisle, which is like a row of small classical pedestals, each bearing a stumpy obelisk. By far the finest feature of the outside is the great west door. On each side are clusters of square pinnacles ending in square crocketed spirelets, and running up to a horizontal moulding which, as so often, gives the whole design a rectangular form. Within comes the doorway itself; a large trefoiled arch of many mouldings of which the outermost, richly crocketed, turns up as an ogee, to pierce the horizontal line above with its finial. Every moulding is filled with foliage, most elaborately and finely cut, considering that it is worked in granite. Across the trefoil at its springing there runs a horizontal moulding resting on the flat elliptical arch of the door itself. On the tympanum is a figure of St. John under a very elaborate canopy with, on his right, a queer carving of a naked man, and on his left a dragon. The space between the arch and the top moulding is filled with intricate but shallow panelling, among which, between two armillary spheres, are set, on the right, a blank shield crowned--probably prepared for the royal arms--and on the left the town arms--a galley with all sails set. Lastly, as a cresting to the horizontal moulding, there is a row of urnlike objects, the only renaissance features about the whole door. (Fig. 41.)

Inside, all the piers are octagonal with a slender shaft at each angle; these shafts alone having small capitals, while their bases stand on, and interpenetrate with, the base of the whole pier. All the arches are round--as are those leading to the chancel and transept chapels--and are moulded exactly as are the piers. All the vaults have a network of well-moulded ribs.

The tower has been added some fifty years later and is very picturesque. It is of four stories: of these the lowest has rusticated masonry; the second, on its western face, a square-headed window opening beneath a small curly and broken pediment on to a balcony with very fine balusters all upheld by three large corbels. The third story has only a clock, and the fourth two plain round-headed belfry windows on each face. The whole--above a shallow cornice which is no bigger than the mouldings dividing the different stories--ends in a low stone dome, with a bell gable in front, square below, and arched above, holding two bells.

[Sidenote: Azurara.]

Scarcely a mile away, across the river Ave, lies Azurara, which was made a separate parish in 1457 and whose church was built by Dom Manoel in 1498.

In plan it is almost exactly the same as Villa do Conde, except that there are no transept chapels nor any flanking the chancel. Outside almost the only difference lies in the parapet which is of the usual shape with regular merlons; and in the west door which is an interesting example of the change to the early renaissance. The door itself is round-headed, and has Gothic mouldings separated by a broad band covered with shallow renaissance carving. On each side are twisted shafts which run up some way above the door to a sort of horizontal entablature, whose frieze is well carved, and which is cut into by a curious ogee moulding springing from the door arch. Above this entablature the shafts are carried up square for some way, and end in Gothic pinnacles. Between them is a niche surmounted by a large half-Gothic canopy and united to the side shafts by a broken and twisted treelike moulding. What adds to the strangeness of this door is that the blank spaces are plastered and whitewashed, while all the rest of the church is of grey granite. Higher up there is a round window--heavily moulded--and the whole gable ends in a queer little round pediment set between two armillary spheres.

Inside the piers are eight-sided with octagonal bases and caps, and with a band of ornament half-way up the shaft. The arches are simply chamfered but are each crossed by three carved voussoirs.

The tower is exactly like that at Villa do Conde except that the bottom story is not rusticated, and that instead of a dome there is an octagonal spire covered with yellow and white tiles.

[Sidenote: Caminha.]

As at Azurara, the parish church of Santa Maria dos Anjos at Caminha is in plan very like the Matriz at Villa do Conde. Caminha lies on the Portuguese side of the estuary of the Minho, close to its mouth, and the church was begun in 1488, but was not finished till the next century, the tower indeed not being built till 1556. Like the others, the plan shows a nave and rather narrow aisles of five bays, and two square vaulted chapels with an apsidal chancel between to the east. Three large vaulted chapels and the tower have been added, opening from the north aisle. Probably the oldest part is the chancel with its flanking chapels, which are very much more elaborate than any portion of the churches already described. There are at the angles deep square buttresses which end in groups of square spire-capped pinnacles all elaborately crocketed, and not at all unlike those at Batalha. Between these, in the chancel are narrow round-headed windows, whose mouldings are enriched with large four-leaved flowers, and on all the walls from buttress to buttress there runs a rich projecting cornice crowned by a wonderfully pierced and crested parapet; also not unlike those at Batalha, but more wonderful in that it is made of granite instead of fine limestone. The rest of the outside is much plainer, except for the two doorways, and two tall buttresses at the west end. These two doorways--which are among the most interesting in the country--must be a good deal later than the rest of the church, indeed could not have been designed till after the work of that foreign school of renaissance carvers at Coimbra had become well known, and so really belong to a later chapter.

Inside the columns are round, with caps and bases partly round and partly eight-sided, the hollow octagons interpenetrating with the circular mouldings. The arches of the arcade are also round, though those of the chancel and eastern chapels are pointed. Attached to one of the piers is a small eight-sided pulpit, at whose angles are Gothic pinnacles, but whose sides and base are covered with cherubs' heads, vases, and foliage of early renaissance.

But the chief glory of the interior are the splendid tiles with which its walls are entirely covered, and still more the wonderful wooden roof, one of the finest examples of Moorish carpentry to be found anywhere, and which, like the doorways, can now only be merely mentioned.

The tower, added by Diogo Eannes in 1556, is quite plain with one belfry opening in each face close to the top and just below the low parapet which, resting on corbels, ends in a row of curious half-classic battlements.[90]

[Sidenote: Funchal.]

This plan was not confined only to parish churches, for about 1514 we find it used by Dom Manoel at Funchal for the cathedral of the newly founded diocese of Madeira. The only difference of importance is that there is a well-developed transept entered by arches of the same height as that of the chancel. Here the piers are clustered, and with rather poorly carved capitals, the arches pointed and moulded, but rather thin. As in the other churches of this date, the round-headed clerestory windows come over the piers, not over the arches. The chancel, which is rather deeper than usual, is entered by a wide foliated arch, and like the apsidal chapels is vaulted. As at Caminha, the nave roof is of Moorish design, but of even greater interest are the reredos and the choir-stalls. This reredos is three divisions in height and five in width--each division, except the two lower in the centre where there is a niche for the image of the Virgin, containing a large picture.

The divisions are separated perpendicularly by a series of Gothic pinnacles, and horizontally by a band of Gothic tabernacle work at the bottom, and above by beautifully carved early renaissance friezes. The whole ends in a projecting canopy, divided into five bays, each bay enriched with vaulting ribs, and in front with very delicately carved hanging tracery. Above the horizontal cornice is a most elaborate cresting of interlacing trefoils and leaves having in the middle the royal arms with on each side an armillary sphere. Some of the detail of the cresting is not all unlike that of the great reredos in the Sé Velha at Coimbra, and like it has a Flemish look, so that it may have been made perhaps, if not by Master Vlimer, who finished his work at Coimbra in 1508, at any rate by one of his pupils. The stalls, which at the back are separated by Gothic pilasters and pinnacles, have also a continuous canopy, and a high and splendid cresting, which though Gothic in general appearance, is quite renaissance in detail.

Outside, the smaller eastern chapels have an elaborate cresting, and tall twisted pinnacles. The large plain tower which rises east of the north transept has a top crowned with battlements, within which stands a square tile-covered spire.

[Sidenote: Sé, Lamego.]

Before going on to discuss the long-continued influence of the Moors, three buildings in which Gothic finally came to an end must be discussed. These are the west front of Lamego, the cathedral of Vizeu, and the porch and chancel of the Sé at Braga. Except for its romanesque tower and its west front the cathedral of Lamego has been entirely rebuilt; and of the west front only the lower part remains uninjured. This front is divided by rather elaborate buttresses into three nearly equal parts--for the side aisles are nearly as wide as the central. In each of these is a large pointed doorway, that in the centre being at once wider and considerably higher than those of the aisles. The central door has six moulded shafts on either side, all with elaborately carved capitals and with deeply undercut foliage in the hollows between, this foliage being carried round the whole arch between the mouldings. Above the top of the arch runs a band of flat, early renaissance carving with a rich Gothic cresting above.

The side-doors are exactly similar, except that they have fewer shafts, four instead of six, and that in the hollows between the mouldings the carving is early renaissance in character and is also flatter than in the central door. Above runs the same band of carving--but lower down--and a similar but simpler cresting.

[Sidenote: Sé, Vizeu.]

Unlike Lamego, while the cathedral of Vizeu has been but little altered within, scarcely any of the original work is to be seen outside. The present cathedral was built by Bishop Dom Diego Ortiz de Vilhegas about the year 1513, and his arms as well as those of Dom Manoel and of two of his sons are found on the vault. The church is not large, having a nave and aisles of four bays measuring about 105 feet by 62; square transept chapels, and a seventeenth-century chancel with flanking chapels. To the west are two towers, built between the years 1641 and 1671, and on the south a very fine renaissance cloister of two stories, the lower having been built, it is said, in 1524,[91] and the upper about 1730. A choir gallery too, with an elaborate Gothic vault below and a fine renaissance balustrade, crosses the whole west end and extends over the porch between the two western towers. But if the cathedral in its plan follows the ordinary type, in design and in construction it is quite unique. Instead of there being a wooden roof as is usual in churches of this period, the whole is vaulted, and that too in a very unusual and original manner. Throughout the piers consist of twelve rounded shafts set together. Of these the five towards the central aisle are several feet higher than the other seven from which spring the aisle arches as well as the ribs of the aisle vault. Consequently the vault of the central aisle is considerably lower at the sides than it is in the middle, and in this ingenious way its thrust is counteracted by the vaults of the side aisles; and at the same time these side vaults are not highly stilted as they would of necessity have been, had the three aisles been of exactly the same height. All the ribs are of considerable projection and well moulded, and of all, except the diagonal ribs, the lowest moulding is twisted like a rope. This rope-moulding is repeated on all the ridge ribs, and in each it is tied in a knot half-way along, a knot which is so much admired that the whole vault is called 'a abobada dos nós' or vault of the knots.

The capitals are more curious than beautiful; the lower have clumsy, early-looking foliage and a large and curious abacus. First each capital has a square abacus of some depth, then comes a large flat circle, one for each three caps, and at the top a star-shaped moulding of hollow curves, the points projecting beyond the middle of the square abaci below. The higher capitals are better. They are carved with more elaborate foliage and gilt, and the abaci follow more exactly the line of the caps below and are carved and gilded in the same way. (Fig. 42.)

Perhaps, however, the chief interest of the cathedral is found in the sacristy, a fine large room opening from the north transept chapel. On its tiled walls there hang several large and some smaller paintings, of which the finest is that of St. Peter. Other pictures are found in the chapter-house, and a fine one of the crucifixion in the Jesus Chapel below it; but this is not the place to enter into the very difficult question of Portuguese painting, a question on which popular tradition throws only a misleading light by attributing everything to a more or less mythical painter, Grão Vasco, and on which all authorities differ, agreeing only in considering this St. Peter one of the finest paintings in the country.

[Sidenote: Sé, Braga.]

Perhaps the chancel of the cathedral at Braga ought rather

to be left to a chapter dealing with what is usually called the Manoelino style--that strange last development of Gothic which is found only in Portugal--but it is in many respects so like the choir chapels of the church at Caminha, and has so little of the usual Manoelino peculiarities, that it were better to describe it now. Whatever may be thought of the chancel, there is no doubt about the large western porch, which is quite free of any Manoelino fantasies.

Both porch and chancel were built by Archbishop Dom Diego de Souza about the year 1530--a most remarkable date when the purely Gothic work here is compared with buildings further south, where Manoelino had already been succeeded by various forms of the classic renaissance. The porch stretches right across the west end of the church, and is of three bays. That in the centre, considerably wider than those at the side, is entered from the west by a round-headed arch, while the arches of the others are pointed. The bays are separated by buttresses of considerable projection, and all the arches, which have good late mouldings, are enriched with a fine feathering of cusps, which stands out well against the dark interior. Unfortunately the original parapet is gone, only the elaborate canopies of the niches, of which there are two to each bay, rise above the level of the flat paved roof. Inside there is a good vault with many well-moulded ribs, but the finest feature of it all is the wrought-iron railing which crosses each opening. This, almost the only piece of wrought-iron work worthy of notice in the whole country, is very like contemporary screens in Spain. It is made of upright bars, some larger, twisted from top to bottom, some smaller twisted at the top, and plain below, alternating with others plain above and twisted below. At the top runs a frieze of most elaborate hammered and pierced work--early renaissance in detail in the centre, Gothic in the side arches, above which comes in the centre a wonderful cresting. In the middle, over the gate which rises as high as the top of the cresting, is a large trefoil made of a flat hammered band intertwined with a similar band after the manner of a Manoelino doorway.[92] (Fig. 43.)

Of the chancel little has been left inside but the vault and the tombs of Dona Theresa (the first independent ruler of Portugal) and of her husband Count Henry of Burgundy--very poor work of about the same date as the chancel. The outside, however, has been unaltered. Below it is square in plan, becoming at about twenty feet from the ground a half-octagon having the eastern a good deal wider than the diagonal sides. On the angles of the lower square stand tall clustered buttresses, rising independently of the wall as far as the projecting cornice, across which their highest pinnacles cut, and united to the chancel at about a third of the height, by small but elaborate flying buttresses. On the eastern face there is a simple pointed window, and there is nothing else to relieve the perfectly plain walls below except two string courses, and the elaborate side buttresses with their tall pinnacles and twisted shafts. But if the walling is plain the cornice is most elaborate. It is of great depth and of considerable projection, the hollows of the mouldings being filled with square flowers below and intricate carving above. On this stands a high parapet of traceried quatrefoils, bearing a horizontal moulding from which springs an elaborate cresting; all being almost exactly like the cornice and parapet at Caminha, but larger and richer, and like it, a marvellous example of carving in granite. At the angles are tall pinnacles, and the pinnacles of the corner buttresses are united to the parapet by a curious contorted moulding.

[Sidenote: Conceiçao, Braga.]

Opposite the east end of the cathedral there stands a small tower built in 1512 by Archdeacon João de Coimbra as a chapel. It is of two stories, with a vaulted chapel below and a belfrey above, lit by round-headed windows, only one of which retains its tracery. Just above the string which divides the two stories are statues[93] under canopies, one projecting on a corbel from each corner, and one from the middle, while above a cornice, on which stand short pinnacles, six to each side, the tower ends in a low square tile roof. The chapel on the ground floor is entered by a porch, whose flat lintel rests on moulded piers at the angles and on two tall round columns in the centre, while its three openings are filled with plain iron screens, the upper part of which blossoms out into large iron flowers and leaves. Inside there is on the east wall a reredos of early renaissance date, and on the south a large half-classical arch flanked by pilasters under which there is a life-size group of the Entombment made seemingly of terra cotta and painted.

So, rather later than in most other lands, and many years after the renaissance had made itself felt in other parts of the country, Gothic comes to an end, curiously enough not far from where the oldest Christian buildings are found.