Here the tracery is very much less elaborate than in the Claustro Real at Batalha, but as scarcely a square inch of the whole cloister is left uncarved the effect is much more disturbed and so less pleasing.
Beautiful though most of the ornament is, there is too much of it, and besides, the depressed shape of the lower arches is bad and ungraceful, and the attempt at tracery in the upper walks is more curious than successful.
The chapter-house too, though a large and splendid room, would have looked better with a simpler vault and without the elliptical arches of the apse recesses.
The refectory, without any other ornament than the bold ribs of its vaulted roof, and a dado of late tiles, is far more pleasing.
Altogether, splendid as it is, Belem is far less pleasing, outside at least, than the contemporary work at Batalha or at Thomar, for, like the tower of São Vicente near by, it is wanting in those perfect proportions which more than richness of detail give charm to a building. Inside it is not so, and though many of the vaulting ribs might be criticised as useless
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FIG. 66. Belem Cloister. |
FIG. 67. Belem Lower Cloister. |
and the whole vault as wanting in simplicity, yet there is no such impressive interior in Portugal and not many elsewhere.
The very over-elaboration which spoils the cloister is only one of the results of all the wealth which flowed in from the East, and so, like the whole monastery, is a worthy memorial of all that had been done to further exploration from the time of Prince Henry, till his efforts were crowned with success by Vasco da Gama.
Conceição, Velha.
There can be little doubt that the transept front of the church of the Conceição Velha was also designed by João de Castilho. The church was built after 1520 on the site of a synagogue, and was almost entirely destroyed by the earthquake of 1755. Only the transept front has survived, robbed of its cornice and cresting, and now framed in plain pilasters and crowned by a pediment. The two windows, very like those at Belem, have beautiful renaissance details and saints in niches on the jambs.