Portuguese Architecture

by Walter Crum Watson

At one end of the town on the slope of the hill stands the castle, and not far off in one of the streets is the town hall whose tower is too characteristic of the Alemtejo not to be noticed. The building is whitewashed and perfectly plain, with ordinary square windows. An outside stair leads to the upper story, and behind it rises the tower. It, like the building, is absolutely plain with semicircular openings near the top irregularly divided by a square pier. Close above these openings is a simple cornice on which stand rather high and narrow battlements; within them rises a short eight-sided spire, and at each corner a short round turret capped by a conical roof. The whole from top to bottom is plastered and whitewashed, and it is this glaring whiteness more than anything else which gives to the whole so Eastern a look.

As to the castle, Haupt in his most interesting book, Die Baukunst der Renaissance in Portugal, says that, though he had never seen it, yet from descriptions of its plan he had come to the conclusion that it was the castle which, according to Vasari, was built by Andrea da Sansovino for Dom João ii. Now it is well known that Sansovino was for nine years in Portugal and did much work there, but none of it can now be found except perhaps a beautiful Italian door in the palace at Cintra; Vasari also states that he did some work in the heavy and native style which the king liked. Is it possible that the castle of Alvito is one of his works in this native style?

Vasari says that Sansovino built for Dom João a beautiful palace with four towers, and that part of it was decorated by him with paintings, and it was because Haupt believed that this castle was built round an arcaded court—a regular Italian feature, but one quite unknown in Portugal—that he thought it must be Sansovino's lost palace.

As a matter of fact the court is not arcaded—there is only a row of rough plastered arches along one side; there are five and not four towers; there is no trace now of any fine painted decoration inside; and, in short, it is inconceivable that, even to please a king, an architect of the Italian renaissance could ever have designed such a building.

The plan of the castle is roughly square with a round tower at three of the corners, and at the fourth or southern corner a much larger tower, rounded in front and projecting further from the walls. The main front is turned to the south-west, and on that side, as well as on the south-eastern, are the habitable parts of the castle. Farm buildings run along inside and outside the north-western, while the north-eastern side is bounded only by a high wall.

Half-way along the main front is the entrance gate, a plain pointed arch surmounted by two shields, that on the right charged with the royal arms, and that on the left with those of the Barão d'Alvito, to whose descendant, the Marques d'Alvito, the castle still belongs. There is also an inscription stating that the castle, begun in 1494 by the orders of Dom João ii. and finished in the time of Dom Manoel, was built by Dom Diogo Lobo, Barão d'Alvito.[97]

In the court a stair, carried on arches, goes up to the third floor where are the chief rooms in the house. None of them, which open one from the other or from a passage leading to the chapel in the westernmost corner, are in any way remarkable except for their windows. The ceilings of the principal rooms are of wood and panelled, but are clearly of much later date than the building and are not to be compared with those at Cintra. Most of the original windows—for those on the main front have been replaced by plain square openings—are even more Eastern than those at Cintra. They are nearly all of two lights—there is one of a single light in the passage—but are without the square framing. Each window has three very slender white marble shafts, with capitals and with abaci moulded on each side. On some of the capitals are carved twisted ropes, while others, as in a window in the large southern tower, are like those at Cintra. As the shafts stand a little way back from the face of the wall the arches are of two orders, of which only the inner comes down to the central shaft. ([Fig. 47].)

These arches, all horseshoe in shape, are built of red brick with very wide mortar joints, and each brick, in both orders, is beautifully moulded or cut at the ends so as to form a series of small trefoiled cusps, each arch having as many as twenty-seven or more. The whole building is plastered and washed yellow, so that the contrast between the bare walls and the elaborate red arches and white shafts is singularly pleasing. All the outer walls are fortified, but the space between each embrasure is far longer than usual; the four corner towers rise a good deal above the rest of the buildings, but in none, except the southern, are there windows above the main roof. It has one, shaped like the rest, but now all plastered and framed in an ogee moulding. Half-way along the north-west wall, outside it, stands the keep, which curiously is not Arab at all. It is a large square tower of no great height, absolutely plain, and built of unplastered stone or marble. It has scarcely any windows, and walls of great thickness which, like those of the smaller round towers, have a slight batter. It seems to be older than the rest, and now its chief ornament is a large fig-tree growing near the top on the south side.[98]

Evora.

Of all the towns in the Alemtejo Evora is the one where Eastern influence is most strongly marked. Indeed the Roman temple and the cathedral are perhaps the only old buildings which seem to be distinctly Western, and even the cathedral has some trace of the East in its two western spires, one round and tiled, and the other eight-sided and plastered. For long Evora was one of the chief towns of the kingdom, and was one of those oftenest visited by the kings. Their palace stood close to the church of São Francisco, and must once have been a beautiful building.