Portuguese Architecture

by Walter Crum Watson

The shape of the arches, whether of window or of door, is one of the most characteristic features of Manoelino. After it had been well established they were rarely pointed. Some are round, some trefoils; some have a long line of wavy curves, others a line of sharp angles and curves together.[105] In others, like the door to the Sala das Pegas at Cintra, and so probably derived from Moorish sources, the arch is made of three or more convex curves, and in others again the arch is half of a straight-sided polygon, while in many of the more elaborate all or many of these may be used together to make one complicated whole of interlacing mouldings and hanging cusps.

The capitals too are different from any that have come before. Some are round, but they are more commonly eight-sided, or have at least an eight-sided abacus, often with the sides hollow forming a star. If ornamented with leaves, the leaves do not grow out of the bell but are laid round it like a wreath. But leaf carving is not common; usually the caps are merely moulded, one or two of the mouldings being often like a rope; or branches may be set round them sometimes bound together with a broad ribbon like a bent faggot. The bases too are usually octagonal with an ogee section.

Another feature common to all phases is the use of round mouldings, either one by itself—often forming a kind of twisting broken hood-mould—or of several together, when they usually form a spiral. Such a round moulding has already been seen forming an ogee over the windows at Sempre Noiva and over the chapter-house door at São João Evangelista, Evora, and there are at Evora two windows side by side, in one of which this round moulding forms a simple ogee, while in the other it forms a series of reversed curves after the true Manoelino manner.

House of Resende, Evora.

They are in the house of Garcia de Resende, a man of many accomplishments whose services were much valued both by Dom João and by Dom Manoel. He seems too to have been an architect of some distinction, if, as is said, he designed the Torre de São Vicente at Belem.

This second window in his house is one of the best examples of the complete union between Gothic and Moorish. It has three shafts, one (in the centre) with a Moorish capital, and two whose caps are bound round with a piece of rope. The semicircular arches consist of one round moulding with round cusps. A hollow mould runs down the two jambs and over the two arches, turning up as an ogee at the top. Beyond this hollow are two tall round shafts ending in large crocketed finials, while tied to them with carved cords is a curious hood-mould, forming three reversed cusps ending in large finials, one in the centre and one over each of the arches, and at the two ends curling across the hollow like a cut-off branch.

Here then we have an example not only of the use of the round moulding, but also of naturalistic treatment which was afterwards sometimes carried to excess.

Probably this window may be rather later in date than at least the foundation of the churches of Nossa Senhora do Popolo at Caldas da Rainha or of the Jesus Convent at Setubal; but it is in itself so good an example of the change from the simple ogee to the round broken moulding and of the use of naturalistic features, that it has been taken first.

Caldas da Rainha.

In 1485 Queen Leonor, wife of Dom João ii., began a hospital for poor bathers at the place now called after her, Caldas da Rainha, or Queen's hot baths. Beside the hospital was built a small church, now a good deal altered, with simple round-headed windows, and a curious cresting. Attached to it is a tower, interesting as being the only Manoelino church tower now existing. The lower part is square and plain, but the upper is very curious. On one side are two belfry windows, with depressed trefoil heads—that is the top of the trefoil has a double curve, exactly like the end of a clover leaf. On the outer side of each window is a twisted shaft with another between them, and from the top of these shafts grow round branches forming an arch over each window, and twining up above them in interlacing curves. The window on the east side has a very fantastic head of broken curves and straight lines. A short way above the windows the square is changed to an octagon by curved offsets. There are clock faces under small gables on each cardinal side, and at the top of it all rises a short eight-sided spire.