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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: Marvilla, Santarem.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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