[Sidenote: Cloister, Oporto.]
If the cloister at Evora, which was built in 1376 and has already been
described, is the one which departs furthest from the original type,
retaining only the round opening, that of the cathedral of Oporto, built
in 1385, comes nearer to Fontfroide than any of the others. Here each
bay is designed exactly like the French example except that the small
arches are pointed, that the large openings are chamfered instead of
moulded, and that there are buttresses between each bay. The capitals
which are rather tall are carved with rather shallow leaves, but the
most noticeable features are the huge square moulded abaci which are so
large as to be more like those of the romanesque cloisters at Moissac or
of Sta. Maria del Sar at Santiago than any fourteenth-century work.
[Sidenote: Sta. Clara, Coimbra.]
The most important church of the time of Dom Diniz is, or rather was,
that of the convent of Poor Clares founded at Coimbra by his wife St.
Isabel. Although a good king, Diniz had not been a good husband, and the
queen's sorrows had been still further increased by the rebellion of
[Illustration: FIG 28.
ALCOBAÇA.
CLOISTER OF DOM DINIZ, OR DO SILENCIO.]
[Illustration: FIG. 29.
LISBON.
CATHEDRAL CLOISTER.]
her son, afterwards Affonso IV., a rebellion to which Isabel was able to
put an end by interposing between her husband and her son. When St.
Isabel died in 1327, two years after her husband, the church was not yet
quite finished, but it must have been so soon after. Unfortunately the
annual floods of the Mondego and the sands which they bring down led to
the abandonment of the church in the seventeenth century, and have so
buried it that the floor of the barn--for that is the use to which it is
now put--is almost level with the springing of the aisle arches, but
enough is left to show what the church was like, and were not its date
well assured no one would believe it to be later than the end of the
twelfth century. The chancel, which was aisleless and lower than the
rest of the church, is gone, but the nave and its aisles are still in a
tolerable state of preservation, though outside all the detail has been
destroyed except one round window on the south side filled in with white
marble tracery of a distinctly Italian type, and the corbel table of the
boat-keel shape. The inside is most unusual for a church of the
fourteenth century. The central aisle has a pointed barrel vault
springing from a little above the aisle arches, while the aisles
themselves have an ordinary cross vault. All the capitals too look
early, and the buttresses broad and rather shallow. (Fig. 30.)
[Sidenote: Leça do Balio.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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