Altogether the arcades are most stately, and the beauty of the church is further enhanced by the exceptionally fine tiles with which the walls as well as the spandrels above the arches are lined. Up to about the height of fifteen feet, above a stone bench, the tiles, blue, yellow, and orange, are arranged in panels, two different patterns being used alternatively, with beautiful borders, while in each spandrel towards the central aisle an Emblem of the Virgin, Tower of Ivory, Star of the Sea, and so on, is surrounded by blue and yellow intertwining leaves. Above these, as above the panels on the walls, the whole is covered with dark and light tiles arranged in checks, and added as stated by a date over the chancel arch in 1617. The lower tiles are probably of much the same date or a little earlier.
Against one of the nave columns there stands a very elegant little pulpit. It rests on the Corinthian capital of a very bulbous baluster, is square, and has on each side four beautiful little Corinthian columns, fluted and surrounded with large acanthus leaves at the bottom. Almost exactly like it, but round and with balusters instead of columns, is the pulpit in the church of Nossa Senhora dos Olivaes at Thomar. ([Fig. 89].)
Elvas, São Domingos.
The most original in plan as well as in decoration of all the buildings of this time is the church of the nunnery of São Domingos at Elvas, like nearly all nunneries in the kingdom now fast falling to pieces. In plan it is an octagon about forty-two feet across with three apses to the east and a smaller octagonal dome in the middle standing on eight white marble columns with Doric capitals. The columns, the architrave below the dome, the arches of the apses and their vaults, are all of white marble covered with exquisite carved ornament partly gilt, while all the walls and the other vaults are lined with tiles, blue and yellow patterns on a white ground. The abacus of each column is set diagonally to the diameter of the octagon, and between it and the lower side of the architrave are interposed thin blocks of stone rounded at the ends.
Like the Conceicão at Thomar this too dates from near the end of Dom João's reign, having been founded about 1550.
Cintra, Penha Longa and Penha Verde.
Capitals very like those in the nave of the Marvilla, but with a ring of leaves instead of flutes, are found in the cloister of the church at Penha Longa near Cintra, and in the little round chapel at Penha Verde not far off, where lies the heart of Dom João de Castro, fourth viceroy of India. Built about 1535, it is a simple little round building with a square recess for the altar opposite the door. Inside, the dome springs from a cornice resting on six columns whose capitals are of the same kind.
Others nearly the same are found in the house of the Conde de São Vicente at Lisbon, only there the volutes are replaced by winged figures, as is also the case in the arcades of the Misericordia at Tavira, the door of which has been mentioned above.
Vizeu, Cloister.
Still more like the Marvilla capitals are those of the lower cloister of the cathedral of Vizeu. This, the most pleasing of all the renaissance cloisters in Portugal, has four arches on each side resting on fluted columns which though taller than usual in cloisters, have no entasis. The capitals are exactly like those at Santarem, but being of granite are much coarser, with roses instead of winged heads on the unmoulded abaci. At the angles two columns are placed together and a shallow strip is carried up above them all to the cornice. Somewhere in the lower cloister are the arms of Bishop Miguel da Silva, who is