Portuguese Architecture

by Walter Crum Watson

Far more interesting than this church, because much better preserved and because it is clearly derived, in part at least, from Batalha, is the cathedral of Guarda, begun by João i. Guarda is a small town, not far from the Spanish border, built on a hill rising high above the bleak surrounding tableland to a height of nearly four thousand feet, and was founded by Dom Sancho i. in 1197 to guard his frontier against the Spaniards and the Moors. Begun by João i. the plan and general design of the whole church must belong to the beginning of the fifteenth century, though the finishing of the nave, and the insertion of larger transept windows, were carried out under Dom Manoel, and though the great reredos is of the time of Dom João iii. Yet the few chapels between the nave buttresses are almost the only real additions made to the church. Though of but moderate dimensions, it is one of the largest of Portuguese cathedrals, being 175 feet long by 70 feet wide and 110 feet across the transepts. It is also unique among the aisled and vaulted churches in copying Batalha by having a well-developed clerestory and flying buttresses.

The plan consists of a nave and aisles of five bays, a transept projecting one bay beyond the aisles, and three apses to the east. At the crossing the vault is slightly raised so as to admit of four small round windows opening above the flat roofs of the central aisle and transepts. The only peculiarity about the plan lies in the two western towers, which near the ground are squares set diagonally to the front of the church and higher up change to octagons, and so rise a few feet above the flat roof. About the end of the fifteenth century two small chapels were added to the north of the nave, and later still the spaces between the buttresses were filled in with shallow altar recesses.

The likeness to Batalha is best seen in the Capella Mor. As the apse has only three instead of five sides, the windows are rather wider, and there are none below, but otherwise the resemblance is as great as may be, when the model is of fine limestone and the copy of granite. The buttresses have offset string courses, and square crocketed pinnacles just as at Batalha; there has even been an attempt to copy the parapet, though only the trefoil corbel table is really like the model, for the parapet itself is solid with a cresting of rather clumsy fleurs-de-lis. These pinnacles and this crested parapet are found everywhere all round the church, though the pinnacles on the aisle walls from which the plain flying buttresses spring are quite different, being of a Manoelino design. Again the north transept door has evidently been inspired by the richness of Batalha. Here the door itself is plain, but well moulded, with above it an elaborately crocketed ogee drip-mould, which ends in a large finial; above this rises to a considerable height some arcaded panelling, ending at the top in a straight band of quatrefoil, and interrupted by a steep gable. ([Fig. 38].)

No other part of the outside calls for much notice except the boat-keel corbels of the smaller apses, the straight gable-less ends to transept and nave which show that the roofs are flat and paved, and the western towers. These are of three stories. The lowest is square at the bottom and octagonal above, the change being effected by a curved offset at two corners, while at the third or western corner the curve has been cut down so as to leave room for an eighteenth-century window, lighting the small polygonal chapel inside, a chapel originally lit by two narrow round-headed windows on the diagonal sides. In the second story there are again windows on the same diagonal sides, but they have been built up: while on the third or highest division—where the octagon is complete on all sides—are four belfry windows. The whole is finished by a crested parapet. The west front between these towers is very plain. At the top a cresting, simpler than that elsewhere, below a round window without tracery, lower still two picturesque square rococo windows, and at the bottom a rather elaborate Manoelino doorway, built not many years ago to replace one of the same date as the windows above.

Throughout the clerestory windows are not large. They are round-headed of two lights, with simple tracery, and deep splays both inside and out. The large transept windows with half octagonal heads under a large trefoil were inserted about the beginning of the sixteenth century.

Inside the resemblance to Batalha is less noticeable. The ribs of the chancel vault are well moulded, as are the arches of the lantern, but in the nave, which cannot have been finished till the end of the fifteenth century, the design is quite different. The piers are all a hollow square set diagonally with a large round shaft at each corner. In the aisle arches the hollows of the diagonal sides are carried round without capitals, with which the round shafts alone are provided; while the shaft in front runs up to a round Manoelino capital with octagonal abacus from which springs the vaulting at a level higher than the sills of the clerestory windows.[83] The most unusual part of the nave is the vaulting of all three aisles, where all the ribs, diagonal as well as transverse, are of exactly the same section and size as is the round shaft from which they spring, even the wall rib being of the same shape though a little smaller. At the crossing there are triple shafts on each side, those of the nave being twisted, which is another Manoelino feature. The nave then must be about a hundred years later than the eastern parts of the church, where the capitals are rather long and are carved with foliage and have square abaci, while those of the nave are all of the time of King João ii. or of King Manoel. At about the same time some small and picturesque windows were inserted above the smaller apses on the east side of the transept, and rather later was built the chapel to the north-east of the nave, which is entered through a segmental arch whose jambs and head are well carved with early renaissance foliage and figures, and which contains the simple tomb of a bishop. The pulpits, organs, and stalls, both in the chancel and in the western choir gallery, are fantastic and late, but the great reredos which rises in three divisions to the springing of the vault is the largest and one of the finest in the country, but belonging as it does to a totally different period and school must be left for another chapter.

Nossa Senhora do Vencimento do Monte do Carmo, Lisbon.

Much need not be said about the Carmo at Lisbon, another church of the same date, as it has been almost entirely wrecked by the earthquake of 1755. The victory of Aljubarrota was due perhaps even more to the grand Constable of Portugal, Dom Nuno Alvares Pereira, than to the king himself, and, like the king, the Constable commemorated the victory by founding a monastery, a great Carmelite house in Lisbon. The church of Nossa Senhora do Vencimento do Monte do Carmo stands high up above the central valley of Lisbon on the very verge of the steep hill. Begun in July 1389 the foundations twice gave way, and it was only after the Constable had dismissed his first master and called in three men of the same name, Affonso, Gonçalo, and Rodrigo Eannes, that a real beginning could be made, and it was not finished till 1423, when it was consecrated; at the same time the founder assumed the habit of a Carmelite and entered his own monastery to die eight years later, and to become an object of veneration to the whole people. In plan the church was almost exactly like that of Batalha, though with a shorter nave of only five bays.[84] To the east of the transept are still five apses—the best preserved part of the whole building—having windows and buttresses like those at Batalha. The only other part of the church which has escaped destruction is the west door, a large simple opening of six moulded arches springing from twelve shafts whose capitals are carved with foliage. From what is left it seems that the church was more like what Batalha was planned to be, rather than what it became under the direction of Huguet: but the downfall of the nave has been so complete that it is only possible to make out that there must have been a well-developed clerestory and a high vaulted central aisle. What makes this destruction all the more regrettable is the fact that the church was full of splendid tombs, especially that of the Holy Constable himself: a magnificent piece of carving in alabaster sent from Flanders by Dom João's daughter, Isabel, duchess of Flanders.[85]]

After this catastrophe an attempt was made to rebuild the church, but little was done, and it still remains a complete ruin, having been used since the suppression of all monasteries in 1834 as an Archæological Museum where many tombs and other architectural fragments may still be seen.