Portuguese Architecture

by Walter Crum Watson

Outside, the smaller eastern chapels have an elaborate cresting, and tall twisted pinnacles. The large plain tower which rises east of the north transept has a top crowned with battlements, within which stands a square tile-covered spire.

Sé, Lamego.

Before going on to discuss the long-continued influence of the Moors, three buildings in which Gothic finally came to an end must be discussed. These are the west front of Lamego, the cathedral of Vizeu, and the porch and chancel of the Sé at Braga. Except for its romanesque tower and its west front the cathedral of Lamego has been entirely rebuilt; and of the west front only the lower part remains uninjured. This front is divided by rather elaborate buttresses into three nearly equal parts—for the side aisles are nearly as wide as the central. In each of these is a large pointed doorway, that in the centre being at once wider and considerably higher than those of the aisles. The central door has six moulded shafts on either side, all with elaborately carved capitals and with deeply undercut foliage in the hollows between, this foliage being carried round the whole arch between the mouldings. Above the top of the arch runs a band of flat, early renaissance carving with a rich Gothic cresting above.

The side-doors are exactly similar, except that they have fewer shafts, four instead of six, and that in the hollows between the mouldings the carving is early renaissance in character and is also flatter than in the central door. Above runs the same band of carving—but lower down—and a similar but simpler cresting.

Sé, Vizeu.

Unlike Lamego, while the cathedral of Vizeu has been but little altered within, scarcely any of the original work is to be seen outside. The present cathedral was built by Bishop Dom Diego Ortiz de Vilhegas about the year 1513, and his arms as well as those of Dom Manoel and of two of his sons are found on the vault. The church is not large, having a nave and aisles of four bays measuring about 105 feet by 62; square transept chapels, and a seventeenth-century chancel with flanking chapels. To the west are two towers, built between the years 1641 and 1671, and on the south a very fine renaissance cloister of two stories, the lower having been built, it is said, in 1524,[91] and the upper about 1730. A choir gallery too, with an elaborate Gothic vault below and a fine renaissance balustrade, crosses the whole west end and extends over the porch between the two western towers. But if the cathedral in its plan follows the ordinary type, in design and in construction it is quite unique. Instead of there being a wooden roof as is usual in churches of this period, the whole is vaulted, and that too in a very unusual and original manner. Throughout the piers consist of twelve rounded shafts set together. Of these the five towards the central aisle are several feet higher than the other seven from which spring the aisle arches as well as the ribs of the aisle vault. Consequently the vault of the central aisle is considerably lower at the sides than it is in the middle, and in this ingenious way its thrust is counteracted by the vaults of the side aisles; and at the same time these side vaults are not highly stilted as they would of necessity have been, had the three aisles been of exactly the same height. All the ribs are of considerable projection and well moulded, and of all, except the diagonal ribs, the lowest moulding is twisted like a rope. This rope-moulding is repeated on all the ridge ribs, and in each it is tied in a knot half-way along, a knot which is so much admired that the whole vault is called 'a abobada dos nós' or vault of the knots.

The capitals are more curious than beautiful; the lower have clumsy, early-looking foliage and a large and curious abacus. First each capital has a square abacus of some depth, then comes a large flat circle, one for each three caps, and at the top a star-shaped moulding of hollow curves, the points projecting beyond the middle of the square abaci below. The higher capitals are better. They are carved with more elaborate foliage and gilt, and the abaci follow more exactly the line of the caps below and are carved and gilded in the same way. ([Fig. 42].)

Perhaps, however, the chief interest of the cathedral is found in the sacristy, a fine large room opening from the north transept chapel. On its tiled walls there hang several large and some smaller paintings, of which the finest is that of St. Peter. Other pictures are found in the chapter-house, and a fine one of the crucifixion in the Jesus Chapel below it; but this is not the place to enter into the very difficult question of Portuguese painting, a question on which popular tradition throws only a misleading light by attributing everything to a more or less mythical painter, Grão Vasco, and on which all authorities differ, agreeing only in considering this St. Peter one of the finest paintings in the country.

FIG. 42. Sé, Vizeu.

FIG. 43. Braga. W. Porch of Cathedral.

Sé, Braga.