Chapter 33

THE COMING OF THE FOREIGN ARTISTS

If João 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 João III. Yet the earlier work of João 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 São 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 Lourenço 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 João 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

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 Lourenço 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.'

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 São 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 João 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 João 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 João 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 Gôa, the great metal screen made by Antonius Fernandes is gone, and so is the reredos carved by a master from Seville and painted by Christovão de Figueredo. There still hang on the wall of the sacristy two or three

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 Grão Vasco, though the name is the same, nor can he be Christovão de Figueredo, but perhaps the painting spoken of by Gregorio Lourenço as done by Christovão 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 Lourenço 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 João de Ruão (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 João de Ruão. It is likely then that the figures are mostly the work of the lesser known men and not of Master Nicolas or of João de Ruão, though João, 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 Lourenço wrote to Dom João III. in 1522, but still wanted a suitable finishing to its door. This Gregorio urged Dom João 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 João de Ruão is mentioned in later documents as

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 Ançã not far off, and used at Coimbra for all delicate work.[140]

In the discharge signed by João de Ruão 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 João de Ruão--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 'Quitaçam' 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 mediæval 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 Alcobaça 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, Sé Velha.]

If the stalls at Santa Cruz are the only examples of this period still left on the mainland, the Sé Velha possesses the only great mediæval 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

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 'quitaçã' or discharge granted in that year to 'Mestre Vlimer framengo, ora estante nesta cidada, e seu Parceiro João 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

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 São 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.'