Chapter 38

OTHER BUILDINGS OF THE LATER RENAISSANCE, TILL THE EXPULSION OF THE SPANIARDS

In the last chapter the most important works of Terzi and of his pupils have been described, and it is now necessary to go back and tell of various buildings which do not conform to his plan of a great barrel-vaulted nave with flanking chapels, though the designers of some of these buildings have copied such peculiarities as the tall and narrow pilasters of which his school was so fond, and which, as will be seen, ultimately degenerated into mere pilaster strips.

[Sidenote: Vianna do Castello, Misericordia.]

But before speaking of the basilican and other churches of this time, the Misericordia at Vianna do Castello must be described.[166]

The Misericordia of Vianna stands on the north side of the chief square of the town, and was built in 1589 by one João Lopez, whose father had designed the beautiful fountain which stands near by.

It is a building of very considerable interest, as there seems to be nothing else like it in the country. The church of the Misericordia, a much older building ruined by later alteration, is now only remarkable for the fine blue and white tile decoration with which its walls are covered. Just to the west of it, and at the corner of the broad street in which is a fine Manoelino house belonging to the Visconde de Carreira, stands the building designed by Lopez. The front towards the street is plain, but that overlooking the square highly decorated.

At the two corners are broad rusticated bands which run up uninterrupted to the cornice; between them the front is divided into three stories of open loggias. Of these the lowest has five round arches resting on Ionic columns; in

the second, on a solid parapet, stand four whole and two half 'terms' or atlantes which support an entablature with wreath-enriched frieze; corbels above the heads of the figures cross the frieze, and others above them the low blocking course, and on them are other terms supporting the main cornice, which is not of great projection. A simple pediment rises above the four central figures, surmounted by a crucifix and containing a carving of a sun on a strapwork shield. (Fig. 97.)

The whole is of granite and the figures and mouldings are distinctly rude, and yet it is eminently picturesque and original, and shows that Lopez was a skilled designer if but a poor sculptor.

[Sidenote: Beja, São Thiago.]

Coming now to the basilican churches. That of São Thiago at Beja was begun in 1590 by Jorge Rodrigues for Archbishop Theotonio of Evora. It has a nave and aisles of six bays covered with groined vaults resting on Doric columns, a transept and three shallow rectangular chapels to the east. The clerestory windows are round.

[Sidenote: Azeitão, São Simão.]

Much the same plan had been followed a little earlier by Affonso de Albuquerque, son of the great viceroy of India, when about 1570 he built the church of São Simão close to his country house of Bacalhôa, at Azeitão not far from Setubal. São Simão is a small church with nave and aisles of five bays, the latter only being vaulted, with arcades resting on Doric columns; at first there was a tower at each corner, but they fell in 1755, and only one has been rebuilt. Most noticeable in the church are the very fine tiles put up in 1648, with saintly figures over each arch. They are practically the same as those in the parish church of Alvito.

[Sidenote: Evora, Cartuxa.]

Another basilican church of this date is that of the Cartuxa or Charter House,[167] founded by the same Archbishop Theotonio in 1587, a few miles out of Evora. Only the west front, built about 1594 of black and white marble, deserves mention. Below there is a porch, spreading beyond the church, and arranged exactly like the lower Claustro dos Filippes at Thomar, with round arches separated by two Doric columns on pedestals, but with a continuous entablature carried above the arches on large corbelled keystones. Behind rises the front in two stories. The lower has three windows, square-headed and separated by Ionic columns, two on each side, with niches between. Single Ionic columns also stand at the outer angles of the aisles. In the upper story the central part is carried up to a pediment by Corinthian columns resting on the Ionic below; between them is a large statued niche surrounded by panels.

Unfortunately the simplicity of the design is spoilt by the broken and curly volutes which sprawl across the aisles, by ugly finials at the corners, and by a rather clumsy balustrading to the porch.

[Sidenote: Beja, Misericordia.]

The interior of the Misericordia at Beja, a square, divided into nine smaller vaulted squares by arches resting on fine Corinthian columns, with altar recesses beyond, looks as if it belonged to the time of Dom João III., but if so the front must have been added later. This is very simple, but at the same time strong and unique. The triple division inside is marked by three great rusticated Doric pilasters on which rest a simple entablature and parapet. Between are three round arches, enclosing three doors of which the central has a pointed pediment, while over the others a small round window lights the interior.

[Sidenote: Oporto, Nossa Senhora da Serra do Pilar.]

But by far the most original of all the buildings of this later renaissance is the monastery of Nossa Senhora da Serra do Pilar in Villa Nova de Gaya, the suburb of Oporto which lies south of the Douro. Standing on a high granite knoll, which rises some fifty feet above the country to the south, and descends by an abrupt precipice on the north to the deep-flowing river, here some two hundred yards wide, and running in a narrow gorge, the monastery and its hill have more than once played an important part in history. From there Wellington, in 1809, was able to reconnoitre the French position across the river while his army lay hidden behind the rocks; and it was from a creek just a little to the east that the first barges started for the north bank with the men who seized the unfinished seminary and held it till enough were across to make Soult see he must retreat or be cut off. Later, in 1832, the convent, defended for Queen Maria da Gloria, was much knocked about by the besieging army of Dom Miguel.

The Augustinians had begun to build on the hill in 1540, but none of the present monastery can be earlier than the seventeenth century, the date 1602 being found in the cloister.

The plan of the whole building is most unusual and original: the nave is a circle some seventy-two feet in diameter, surmounted by a dome, and surrounded by eight shallow chapels, of which one contains the entrance and another is prolonged to form a narrow chancel. This chancel leads to a larger square choir behind the high altar, and east of it is a round cloister sixty-five feet across. The various monastic buildings are grouped round the choir and cloister, leaving the round nave standing free. The outside of the circle is two stories in height, divided by a plain cornice carried round the pilasters which mark the recessed chapels within. The face of the wall above this cornice is set a little back, and the pilaster strips are carried up a short distance to form a kind of pedestal, and are then set back with a volute and obelisk masking the offset. The main cornice has two large corbels to each bay, and carries a picturesque balustrading within which rises a tile roof covering the dome and crowned by a small lantern at the top. The west door has two Ionic columns on each side; a curious niche with corbelled sides rises above it to the lower cornice; and the church is lit by a square-headed window pierced through the upper part of each bay. Only the pilasters, cornices, door and window dressings are of granite ashlar, all the rest being of rubble plastered and whitewashed.

Now the eucalyptus-trees planted round the church have grown so tall that only the parapet can be seen rising above the tree-tops.

Though much of the detail of the outside is far from being classical or correct, the whole is well proportioned and well put together, but the same cannot be said of the inside. Pilasters of inordinate height have been seen in some of the Lisbon churches, but compared with these which here stand in couples between the chapels they are short and well proportioned. These pilasters, which are quite seventeen diameters high, have for capitals coarse copies of those in São Vicente de Fora in Lisbon. In São Vicente the cornice was carried on corbels crossing the frieze, and so was continuous and unbroken. Here all the lower mouldings of the cornice are carried round the corbels and the pilasters so that only the two upper are continuous, an arrangement which is anything but an improvement. Another unpleasing feature are the three niches which, with hideous painted figures, are placed one above the other between the pilasters. The chancel arch reaches up to the main cornice, but those of the door and chapel recesses are low enough to leave room for the windows. The dome is divided into panels of various shapes by broad flat ribs with coarse mouldings. The chancel and choir beyond have barrel vaults divided into simple square panels.

The church then, though interesting from its plan, is--inside especially--remarkably unpleasing, though it is perhaps only fair to attribute a considerable part of this disagreeable effect to the state of decay into which it has fallen--a state which has only advanced far enough to be squalid and dirty without being in the least picturesque. Far more pleasing than the church is the round cloister behind. In it the thirty-six Ionic columns are much better proportioned, and the capitals better carved; on the cornice stands an attic, rendered necessary by the barrel vault, heavy indeed, but not too heavy for the columns below. This attic is panelled, and on it stand obelisk-bearing pedestals, one above each column, and between them pediments of strapwork. (Fig. 98.)

Had this cloister been square it would have been in no way very remarkable, but its round shape as well as the fig-trees that now grow in the garth, and the many plants which sprout from joints in the cornice, make it one of the most picturesque buildings in the country. The rest of the monastic buildings have been in ruins since the siege of 1832.

[Sidenote: Coimbra, Santa Cruz Sacristy.]

The sacristy of Santa Cruz at Coimbra must have been begun before Nossa Senhora da Serra had been finished. Though so much later--for it is dated 1622--the architect of this sacristy has followed much more closely the good Italian forms introduced by Terzi. Like that of the Sé Velha, the sacristy of Santa Cruz is a rectangular building, and measures about 52 feet long by 26 wide; each of the longer sides is divided into three bays by Doric pilasters which have good capitals, but are themselves cut up into many small panels. The cornice is partly carried on corbels as in the Serra church, but here the effect is much better. There are large semicircular windows, divided into three lights at each end, and

the barrel vault is covered with deep eight-sided coffers. One curious feature is the way the pilasters in the north-east corner are carried on corbels, so as to leave room for two doors, one of which leads into the chapter-house behind the chancel. (Fig. 99.)

[Sidenote: Lisbon, Santa Engracia.]

Twenty years later was begun the church of Santa Engracia in Lisbon. It was planned on a great scale; a vast dome in the centre surrounded by four equal apses, and by four square towers. It has never been finished, and now only rises to the level of the main cornice; but had the dome been built it would undoubtedly have been one of the very finest of the renaissance buildings in the country.

Like the Serra church it is, outside, two stories in height having Doric pilasters below--coupled at the angles of the towers--and Ionic above. In the western apse, the pilasters are replaced by tall detached Doric columns, and the Ionic pilasters above by buttresses which grow out of voluted curves. Large, simply moulded windows are placed between the upper pilasters, with smaller blank windows above them, while in the western apse arches with niches set between pediment-bearing pilasters lead into the church.

Here, in Santa Engracia, is a church designed in the simplest and most severe classic form, and absolutely free of all the fantastic misuse of fragments of classic detail which had by that time become so common, and which characterise such fronts as those of the Sé Nova at Coimbra or the Collegio Novo at Oporto. The niches over the entrance arches are severe but well designed, as are the windows in the towers and all the mouldings. Perhaps the only fault of the detail is that the Doric pilasters and columns are too tall.

Now in its unfinished state the whole is heavy and clumsy, but at the same time imposing and stately from its great size; but it is scarcely fair to judge so unfinished a building, which would have been very different had its dome and four encompassing towers risen high above the surrounding apses and the red roofs of the houses which climb steeply up the hillside.

[Sidenote: Coimbra, Santa Clara.]

The new convent of Santa Clara at Coimbra was begun about the same time--in 1640--on the hillside overlooking the Mondego and the old church which the stream has almost buried; and, more fortunate than Santa Engracia, it has been finished, but unlike it is a building of little interest.

The church is a rectangle with huge Doric pilasters on either side supporting a heavy coffered roof. There are no aisles, but shallow altar recesses with square-headed windows above. The chancel at the south end is like the nave but narrower; the two-storied nuns' choir is to the north. As the convent is still occupied it cannot be visited, but contains the tomb of St. Isabel, brought from the old church, in the lower choir, and her silver shrine in the upper. Except for the cloister, which, designed after the manner of the Claustro dos Filippes at Thomar, has coupled Doric columns between the arches, and above, niches flanked by Ionic columns between square windows, the rest of the nunnery is even heavier and more barrack-like than the church. Indeed almost the only interest of the church is the use of the huge Doric pilasters, since from that time onward such pilasters, usually as clumsy and as large, are found in almost every church.

This fondness for Doric is probably due to the influence of Terzi, who seems to have preferred it to all the other orders, though he always gave his pilasters a beautiful and intricate capital. In any case from about 1580 onwards scarcely any other order on a large scale is used either inside or outside, and by 1640 it had grown to the ugly size used in Santa Clara and in nearly all later buildings, the only real exception being perhaps in the work of the German who designed Mafra and rebuilt the Capella Mor at Evora. Such pilasters are found forming piers in the church built about 1600 to be the cathedral of Leiria, in the west front of the cathedral of Portalegre, where they are piled above each other in three stories, huge and tall below, short and thinner above, and in endless churches all over the country. Later still they degenerated into mere angle strips, as in the cathedral of Angra do Heroismo in the Azores and elsewhere.

Such a building as Santa Engracia is the real ending of Architecture in Portugal, and its unfinished state is typical of the poverty which had overtaken the country during the Spanish usurpation, when robbed of her commerce by Holland and by England, united against her will to a decaying power, she was unable to finish her last great work, while such buildings as she did herself finish--for it must not be forgotten that Mafra was designed by a foreigner--show a meanness of invention and design scarcely to be equalled in any other land, a strange contrast to the exuberance of fancy lavished on the buildings of a happier age.