São Bento.
Equally plain is the unfinished front of the church of São Bento up on the hill near the botanical gardens. It was designed by Baltazar Alvares for Dom Diogo de Murça, rector of the University in 1600, but not consecrated till thirty-four years later. The church, which inside is about 164 feet long, consists of a nave with side chapels, measuring 60 feet by about 35, a transept of the same width, and a square chancel. Besides there is a deep porch in front between two oblong towers, which have never been carried up above the roof.
The porch is entered by three arches, one in the middle wider and higher than the others. Above are three niches with shell heads, and then three windows, two oblong and one round, all set in rectangular frames. At the sides there are broad pilasters below, with the usual lanky Doric pilasters above reaching to the main cornice, above which there now rises only an unfinished gable end. The inside is much more pleasing. The barrel vaults of the chapels are beautifully panelled and enriched with egg and tongue; between each, two pilasters rise only to the moulding from which the chapel arches spring, and support smaller pilasters with a niche between. In the spandrels of the arches are rather badly carved angels holding shields, and on the arches themselves, as at São Marcos, are cherubs' heads. A plain entablature runs along immediately above these arches, and from it to the main cornice, the walls, covered with blue and white tiles, are perfectly blank, broken only by square-headed windows. Only at the crossing do pilasters run up to the vault, and they are of the usual attenuated Doric form. As usual the roof is covered with plain coffers, as is also the drumless dome.
This is very like the Carmo and the Graça, which repeat the fault of leaving a blank tiled wall above the chapels, and it is quite possible that they too may have been built by Alvares; the plan is evidently founded on that of one of Terzi's churches, as São Vicente, or on that of the Sé Nova, but though some of the detail is charming there is a want of unity between the upper and lower parts which is found in none of Terzi's work, nor even in the heavier Sé Nova.[165]
Lisbon, São Bento.
Baltazar Alvares seems to have been specially employed by the order of St. Benedict, for not only did he build their monasteries at Coimbra but also São Bento, now the Cortes in Lisbon, as well as São Bento da Victoria at Oporto, his greatest and most successful work.
Oporto, São Bento.
The plan is practically the same as that of São Bento at Coimbra, but larger. Here, however, there are no windows over the chapel arches, nor any dome at the crossing. Built of grey granite, a certain heaviness seems suitable enough, and the great coffered vault is not without grandeur, while the gloom of the inside is lit up by huge carved and gilt altar-pieces and by the elaborate stalls in the choir gallery.
CHAPTER XVIII
OTHER BUILDINGS OF THE LATER RENAISSANCE, TILL THE EXPULSION OF THE SPANIARDS