This plan was not confined only to parish churches, for about 1514 we
find it used by Dom Manoel at Funchal for the cathedral of the newly
founded diocese of Madeira. The only difference of importance is that
there is a well-developed transept entered by arches of the same height
as that of the chancel. Here the piers are clustered, and with rather
poorly carved capitals, the arches pointed and moulded, but rather thin.
As in the other churches of this date, the round-headed clerestory
windows come over the piers, not over the arches. The chancel, which is
rather deeper than usual, is entered by a wide foliated arch, and like
the apsidal chapels is vaulted. As at Caminha, the nave roof is of
Moorish design, but of even greater interest are the reredos and the
choir-stalls. This reredos is three divisions in height and five in
width--each division, except the two lower in the centre where there is
a niche for the image of the Virgin, containing a large picture.
The divisions are separated perpendicularly by a series of Gothic
pinnacles, and horizontally by a band of Gothic tabernacle work at the
bottom, and above by beautifully carved early renaissance friezes. The
whole ends in a projecting canopy, divided into five bays, each bay
enriched with vaulting ribs, and in front with very delicately carved
hanging tracery. Above the horizontal cornice is a most elaborate
cresting of interlacing trefoils and leaves having in the middle the
royal arms with on each side an armillary sphere. Some of the detail of
the cresting is not all unlike that of the great reredos in the Sé Velha
at Coimbra, and like it has a Flemish look, so that it may have been
made perhaps, if not by Master Vlimer, who finished his work at Coimbra
in 1508, at any rate by one of his pupils. The stalls, which at the back
are separated by Gothic pilasters and pinnacles, have also a continuous
canopy, and a high and splendid cresting, which though Gothic in general
appearance, is quite renaissance in detail.
Outside, the smaller eastern chapels have an elaborate cresting, and
tall twisted pinnacles. The large plain tower which rises east of the
north transept has a top crowned with battlements, within which stands a
square tile-covered spire.
[Sidenote: Sé, Lamego.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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