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.
[Sidenote: 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.
In 1485 Queen Leonor, wife of Dom João II., began a
[Sidenote: Caldas da Rainha.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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