Portuguese Architecture. Walter Crum Watson
has a west door whose shafts are even more elaborately carved and twisted than are those at the Sé Velha.[45]
There is more than one building, such as the Templar
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church at Thomar, older than the cathedral of Evora, and indeed older than the Sé Velha at Coimbra; but Evora, except that its arches are pointed instead of round, is so clearly derived directly from the Sé at Lisbon that it must be mentioned next in order.
Sé, Evora.
Although the great province of Alemtejo, which reaches from the south bank of the Tagus to within about twenty-five or thirty miles of the Southern Sea, had more than once been entered by the victorious Portuguese king Affonso Henriques, it was not till after his death in 1185, indeed not till the beginning of the thirteenth century, that it could be called a part of Portugal. As early as 1139 Affonso Henriques had met and defeated five kings at Ourique not far from Beja, a victory which was long supposed to have secured his country's independence, and which was therefore believed to have been much greater and more important than was really the case.[46] Evora, the Roman capital of the district, did not fall into the hands of the Christians till 1166, when it is said to have been taken by stratagem by Giraldo Sem Pavor, or 'the Fearless,' an outlaw who by this capture regained the favour of the king. But soon the Moors returned, first in 1174 when they won back the whole of the province, and again in 1184 when Dom Sancho, Affonso's son, utterly defeated and killed their leader, Yusuf. Yusuf's son, Yakub, returned to meet defeat in 1188 and 1190 when he was repulsed from Thomar, but when he led a third army across the Straits in 1192 he found that the Crusaders who had formerly helped Dom Sancho had sailed on to Palestine, and with his huge army was able to drive the Christians back beyond the Tagus and compel the king to come to terms, nor did the Christian borders advance again for several years. It is said that the cathedral begun in 1185 or 1186[47] was dedicated in 1204, so it must have been still incomplete when Yakub's successful invasion took place, and only finished after the Christians had again recovered the town, though it is difficult to see how the church can have been dedicated in that year as the town remained in Moorish power till after Dom Sancho's death in 1211. Except the Sé Velha at Coimbra, Evora is the best-preserved of all the older Portuguese cathedrals, and must always have been one of the largest. The plan is evidently founded on those of the cathedrals of Lisbon and Braga; a nave of eight bays 155 feet long by 75 wide, leads to an aisleless transept 125 by 30, with lantern at the crossing, to the east of which were five chapels. Unfortunately in 1718 the Capella Mor or main chancel was pulled down as being too small for the dignity of an archiepiscopal see, and a new one of many-coloured marbles built in its stead, measuring 75 feet by 30.[48]
To the west are two large square towers; to the south a cloister added in 1376; and at the end of the north transept a chapel built at the end of the fifteenth century and entered by a large archway well carved with rich early renaissance ornament. If there is no advance from the romanesque plan of older churches, there is none in construction. All the arches are pointed, but that is the only direction in which any change has been made. The piers are all cross-shaped with a large half-shaft on each of the four main faces and a smaller round shaft in each angle. The capitals have square moulded abaci, and are rather rudely carved with budlike curled leaves; the pointed arches of the arcade are well moulded, and above them runs a continuous triforium gallery like that in the nave at Lisbon, but with small pointed arches. The main vault is a pointed barrel with bold ribs; it is held up by a half-barrel over the aisles, which have groined vaults with very large transverse arches. The galleries over the aisles are lit by small pointed windows of two lights with a cusped circle between, but except in the lantern which has similar windows, in the transept ends and the west front, these are the only original openings which survive. (Fig. 20.) Both transepts have large rose windows, the northern filled with tracery, like that, common in Champagne, radiating towards and not from the centre. The southern is more interesting. The whole, well moulded, is enclosed in a curious square framing. In the centre a doubly cusped circle is surrounded by twelve radiating openings, whose trefoiled heads abut against twelve other broad trefoils, which are rather curiously run into the mouldings of the containing circle. Over the west porch is a curious eight-light window. There are four equal two-light openings below; on the two in the centre rests a large plain circle, and the space between it and the enclosing arch is very clumsily filled by a rib which, springing from the apex of either light, runs concentrically with the enclosing arch till it meets the larger circle. The whole building is surmounted by brick battlements, everything else being of granite, resting on a good trefoil corbel table, and, as the roofs are perfectly flat, there are no gables.
The two western towers are very picturesque. The northern, without buttresses, has its several windows arranged without any regard to symmetry, and finishes in a round spire covered with green and white glazed tiles. In the southern plain buttresses run up to the belfry stage which has round-headed openings, and above it is a low octagonal spire set diagonally and surrounded by eight pinnacles.
The most unusual feature of the whole cathedral is the fine octagonal lantern at the crossing. Each face has a two-light window, pointed outside, with a round-headed arch within, leaving a passage between the two walls. At each angle are plain buttresses, weathered back a few feet below the corbel table, above which stand eight octagonal pinnacles each with eight smaller pinnacles surrounding a conical stone spire. The whole lantern is covered by a steep stone roof which, passing imperceptibly from the octagonal to the round, is covered, as are all the other pinnacles, with scales carved in imitation of tiles. Inside the well-moulded vaulting ribs do not rise higher than the windows, leaving therefore a large space between the vault and the outer stone capping. (Fig. 21.)
Lanterns, especially octagonal lanterns, are particularly common in Spain, and at Salamanca and its neighbourhood were very early developed and attained to a remarkable degree of perfection before the end of the twelfth century. It is strange, therefore, that they should be so rare in Portugal where there seem now to be only three: one, square, at Coimbra, an octagonal at Lisbon, and one here, where however there is nothing of the internal dome which is so striking at Salamanca. Probably this lantern was one of the enrichments added to the church by Bishop Durando who died in 1283, for the capitals of the west door look considerably later.
This door is built entirely of white marble with shafts which look, as do those of the south transept door, almost like Cipollino, taken perhaps from some Roman building. It has well-moulded arches and abaci; capitals richly carved with realistic foliage, and on each side six of the apostles, all very like each other, large-headed, long-bearded, and long-haired, with rather good drapery but bodies and legs which look far too short. St. Peter alone, with short curly hair and beard, has any individuality, but is even less prepossessing than his companions. They are, however, among the earliest specimens of large figure sculpture which survive, and by their want of grace make it easier to understand why Dom Manoel employed so many foreign artists in the early years of the sixteenth century.
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