More interesting is the second type which was commonly used when a cloister with a vault was wanted; and of it there are still examples to be seen at the Sé Velha Coimbra, at Alcobaça, Lisbon Cathedral, Evora, and Oporto. None of these five examples are exactly alike, but they resemble each other sufficiently to make it probable that they are all, ultimately at least, derived from one common source, and there can be no doubt that that source was Cistercian. In France what was perhaps its very first beginnings may be seen in the Cistercian abbey of Fontenay near Monbart, where in each bay there are two round arches enclosed under one larger round arch. This was further developed at Fontfroide near Narbonne, where an arcade of four small round arches under a large pointed arch carries a thin wall pierced by a large round circle. Of the different Portuguese examples the oldest may very well be that at Coimbra which differs only from Fontfroide in having an arcade of two arches in each bay instead of one of four, but even though it may be a little older than the large cloister of Alcobaça, it must have been due to Cistercian influence. The great Claustro do Silencio at Alcobaça was, as an inscription tells, begun in the year 1310,[67] when on April 13th the first stone was laid by the abbot in the presence of the master builder Domingo Domingues.[68] In this case each bay has an arcade of two or three pointed arches resting on coupled columns with strong buttresses between each bay, but the enclosing arch is not pointed as at Coimbra or Fontfroide but segmental and springs from square jambs at the level of the top of the buttresses, and the circles have been all filled with pierced slabs, some of which have ordinary quatrefoils and some much more intricate patterns, though in no case do they show the Moorish influence which is so noticeable at Evora. On the north side projects the lavatory, an apsidal building with two stories of windows and with what in France would be regarded as details of the thirteenth century and not, as is really the case, of the fourteenth. A few bays on the west walk seem rather later than the rest, as the arches of the arcade are trefoil-headed, while the upper part of a small projection on the south side which now contains a stair, as well as the upper cloister to which it leads, were added by João de Castilho for Cardinal Prince Henry, son of Dom Manoel, and commendator of the abbey in 1518. ([Fig. 28].)
Cloister, Lisbon.
In the cloister at Lisbon which seems to be of about the same date, and which, owing to the nature of the site, runs round the back of the choir, there is no outer containing arch, and in some bays there are two large circles instead of one, but in every other respect, except that some of the round openings are adorned with a ring of dog-tooth moulding, the details are very similar, the capitals and bases being all of good thirteenth-century French form.[69] ([Fig. 29].)
Cloister, Oporto.
If the cloister at Evora, which was built in 1376 and has already been described, is the one which departs furthest from the original type, retaining only the round opening, that of the cathedral of Oporto, built in 1385, comes nearer to Fontfroide than any of the others. Here each bay is designed exactly like the French example except that the small arches are pointed, that the large openings are chamfered instead of moulded, and that there are buttresses between each bay. The capitals which are rather tall are carved with rather shallow leaves, but the most noticeable features are the huge square moulded abaci which are so large as to be more like those of the romanesque cloisters at Moissac or of Sta. Maria del Sar at Santiago than any fourteenth-century work.
Sta. Clara, Coimbra.
The most important church of the time of Dom Diniz is, or rather was, that of the convent of Poor Clares founded at Coimbra by his wife St. Isabel. Although a good king, Diniz had not been a good husband, and the queen's sorrows had been still further increased by the rebellion of
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FIG 28. Alcobaça. Cloister of Dom Diniz, or do Silencio. |
FIG. 29. Lisbon Cathedral Cloister. |
her son, afterwards Affonso iv., a rebellion to which Isabel was able to put an end by interposing between her husband and her son. When St. Isabel died in 1327, two years after her husband, the church was not yet quite finished, but it must have been so soon after. Unfortunately the annual floods of the Mondego and the sands which they bring down led to the abandonment of the church in the seventeenth century, and have so buried it that the floor of the barn—for that is the use to which it is now put—is almost level with the springing of the aisle arches, but enough is left to show what the church was like, and were not its date well assured no one would believe it to be later than the end of the twelfth century. The chancel, which was aisleless and lower than the rest of the church, is gone, but the nave and its aisles are still in a tolerable state of preservation, though outside all the detail has been destroyed except one round window on the south side filled in with white marble tracery of a distinctly Italian type, and the corbel table of the boat-keel shape. The inside is most unusual for a church of the fourteenth century. The central aisle has a pointed barrel vault springing from a little above the aisle arches, while the aisles themselves have an ordinary cross vault. All the capitals too look early, and the buttresses broad and rather shallow. ([Fig. 30].)
Leça do Balio.