Of the third class of tiles, those where the patterns are merely painted
and not raised, there are few examples at Bacalhôa--except when some
restoration has been done--for this manner of tile-painting did not
become common till the next century, but there are a few with very good
patterns in the house itself, and close by, the walls of the church of
São Simão are covered with excellent examples. These were put up by the
heads of a brotherhood in 1648, and are almost exactly the same as those
in the church of Alvito; even the small saintly figures over the arches
occur in both. The pattern of Alvito is one of the finest, and is found
again at Santarem in the church of the Marvilla, where the lower tiles
are all of singular beauty and splendid colouring, blue and yellow on a
white ground. Other beautiful tiled interiors are those of the Matriz at
Caldas da Rainha, and at Caminha on the Minho. Without seeing these
tiled churches it is impossible to realise how beautiful they really
are, and how different are these tiles from all modern ones, whose hard
smooth glaze and mechanical perfection make them cold and anything but
pleasing. (Figs. 10 and 11, _frontispiece_.)
Besides the picture-tiles at Bacalhôa there are some very good examples
of similar work in the semicircular porch which surrounds the small
round chapel of Sant' Amaro at Alcantara close to Lisbon. The chapel
was built in 1549, and the tiles added about thirty years later. Here,
as in the Dominican nunnery at Elvas, and in some exquisite framings and
steps at Bacalhôa, the pattern and architectural details are spread all
over the tiles, often making a rich framing to a bishop or saint. Some
are not at all unlike Francisco Mattos' work in São Roque, which is also
well worthy of notice.
Of the latest pictorial tiles, the finest are perhaps those in the
church of São João Evangelista at Evora, which tell of the life of San
Lorenzo Giustiniani, Venetian Patriarch, and which are signed and dated
'Antoninus ab Oliva fecit 1711.'[28] But these blue picture-tiles are
almost the commonest of all, and were made and used up to the end of the
century.[29]
Now although some of the patterns used are found also in Spain, as at
Seville or at Valencia, and although tiles from Seville were used at
Thomar by João de Castilho, still it is certain that many were of home
manufacture.
As might be expected from the patterns and technique of the oldest
tiles, the first mentioned tilers are Moors.[30] Later there were as
many as thirteen tilemakers in Lisbon, and many were made in the
twenty-eight ovens of _louça de Veneza_, 'Venetian faience.' The tiles
used by Dom Manoel at Cintra came from Belem, while as for the picture
tiles the novices of the order of São Thiago at Palmella formed a school
famous for such work.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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