Far more interesting is the ceiling, which is entirely Arab in construction and in design. In the nave it is an irregular polygon in section, and in the chancel is nearly a semicircle, having nine equal sides. The whole of the boarded surface is entirely covered with an intricate design formed of strips of wood crossing each other in every direction so as to form stars, triangles, octagons, and figures of every conceivable shape. The whole still retains its original colouring. At the centres of the main figures are gilt bosses—the one over the high altar being a shield with the royal arms—the wooden strips are black with a white groove down the centre of each, and the ground is either dark red or light blue. ([Fig. 46].)
The whole is of great interest not only for its own sake, but because it is the only ceiling in the palace which has remained unchanged since the end of the fourteenth century, and because it is, as it were, the parent of the splendid roofs in the Sala dos Cysnes and of the still more wonderful one in the Sala dos Escudos.
The kitchen lies at the back of the chapel and at right angles to it. It is a building about 58 feet long by 25 wide, and is divided into two equal parts by a large arch. Each of these two parts is covered by a huge conical chimney so that the inside is more like the nave of St. Ours at Loches than anything else, while outside these chimneys rise high above all the rest of the palace. It is lit by small two-light Gothic windows, and has lately been lined with white tiles.
Now the chimneys serve only as ventilators, as ordinary iron ranges have been put in. There seems to be nothing in the country at all like these chimneys—for the kitchen at Alcobaça, although it has a stream running through it, is but a poor affair compared with this one, nor is its chimney in any way remarkable outside.[96]
The rest of the palace towards the west, between the west end of the chapel and the great square tower in which is the Sala dos Escudos, was probably also built about the time of Dom João i., but except for a few windows there is little of interest left which belongs to his time.
The great tower of the Sala dos Escudos was built by Dom Manoel on the top of an older building then called the Casa da Meca, in which Affonso v. was born in 1432—the year before his grandfather Dom João died—and where he himself died forty-nine years later. In another room on a higher floor—where his feet, as he walked up and down day after day, have quite worn away the tiles—Affonso vi. was imprisoned. Affonso had by his wildness proved himself quite unable to govern, and had also made himself hated by his queen, a French princess. She fell in love with his brother, so Affonso was deposed, divorced, and banished to the Azores. After some years it was found that he was there trying to form a party, so he was brought to Cintra and imprisoned in this room from 1674 till his death in 1683. These worn-out tiles are worthy of notice for their own sake since tiles with Moorish patterns, as are these here and those in the chapel, are very seldom used for flooring, and they are probably among the oldest in the palace.
Castles, Guimarães and Barcellos.
Such was the palace from the time of João i. to that of Dom Manoel, a building thoroughly Eastern in plan as in detail, and absolutely unlike such contemporary buildings as the palaces of the dukes of Braganza at Guimarães or at Barcellos, or the castle at Villa da Feira between Oporto and Aveiro. The Braganza palaces are both in ruins, but their details are all such as might be found almost anywhere in Christian Europe. Large pointed doors, traceried windows and tall chimneys—these last round and of brick—differ only from similar features found elsewhere, as one dialect may differ from another, whereas Cintra is, as it were, built in a