Portuguese Architecture

by Walter Crum Watson

Gollegã.

There are not very many churches built entirely in this style, though to many a door or a window may have been added or even a nave, as was done to the church of the Order of Christ at Thomar and perhaps to the cathedral of Guarda. Santa Cruz at Coimbra is entirely Manoelino, but is too large and too full of the work of the foreigners who brought in the most beautiful features of the French renaissance to be spoken of now. Another is the church at Gollegã, not far from the Tagus and about half-way between Santarem and Thomar. It is a small church, with nave and aisles of five bays and a square chancel. The piers consist of four half-round shafts round a square. In front the capitals are round next the neck moulding and square next the moulded abacus, while at the sides they become eight-sided. The arches are of two orders and only chamfered. The bases are curious, as each part belonging to a different member of the pier begins at a different level. That of the shaft at the side begins highest, and of the shaft in front lowest, and both becoming eight-sided, envelop the base of the square centre. These eight-sided bases interpenetrate with the mouldings of a lower round base, and all stand on a large splayed octagon, formed from a square by curious ogee curves at the corners. The nave is roofed in wood, but the chancel is vaulted, having ribs enriched like the chancel arch with cable moulding. The west front has a plain tower at the end of the south aisle, buttresses with Gothic pinnacles, a large door below and a round window above. The doorhead is a depressed trefoil, or quatrefoil, as the central leaf is of two curves. Between the inner and outer round moulding is as usual a hollow filled with branches. The outer moulding, on its upper side, throws out the most fantastic curves and cusps, which with their finials nearly encircle two little round windows, and then in wilder curves push up through the square framing at the top to a finial just below the window. At the sides two large twisted shafts standing on very elaborate bases end in twisted pinnacles. The round window is surrounded by large rope moulding, out of which grow two little arms, to support armillary spheres.

Sé, Elvas.

Dom Manoel also built the cathedral at Elvas, but it has been very much pulled about. Only the nave—in part at least—and an earlier west tower survive. Outside the buttresses are square below and three-cornered above; all the walls are battlemented; the aisle windows are tall and round-headed. On the north side a good trefoil-headed door leads to the interior, where the arches are round, the piers clustered with cable-moulded capitals and starry eight-sided abaci. There is a good vault springing from corbels, but the clerestory windows have been replaced by large semicircles.

Marvilla, Santarem.

All the body of the church of Santa Maria da Marvilla at Santarem is built in the style of Dom João iii., that is, the nave arcade has tall Ionic columns and round arches. The rebuilding of the church was ordered by Dom Manoel, but the style called after him is only found in the chancel and in the west door. The chancel, square and vaulted, is entered by a wide and high arch, consisting, like the door to the Sala das Pegas at Cintra, of a series of moulded convex curves. The west door is not unlike that at Gollegã. It has a trefoiled head; with a round moulding at the angle resting on the capitals of thin shafts.

Beyond a broad hollow over which straggles a very realistic and thick-stemmed plant is a large round moulding springing from larger shafts and concentric with the inner. As at Gollegã from the outer side of this moulding large cusps project, one on each side, while in the middle it rises up in two curves forming an irregular pentagon with curved sides. Each outward projection of this round moulding ends in a large finial, so that there are five in all, one to each cusp and three to the pentagon. Beyond this moulding a plain flat band runs up the jambs and round the top cutting across the base of the cusps and of the pentagon. The bases of the shafts rest on a moulded plinth and are eight-sided, as are the capitals round which run small wreaths of leaves. Here the upright shafts at the sides are not twisted but run up in three divisions to Gothic pinnacles. ([Fig. 53].)

Madre de Deus.