d beauty of the figure sculpture, the
drapery is all good, and the smallest heads and hands are worked with a
care not to be surpassed in any country. (Fig. 32.)

On the top of one lies King Pedro with his head to the north, on the
other Dona Inez with hers to the south; both are life size and are as
well wrought as are the smaller details below. Both have on each side
three angels who seem to be just about to lift them from where they lie
or to have just laid them down. These angels, especially those near Dom
Pedro's head, are perhaps the finest parts of either tomb, with their
beautiful drapery, their well-modelled wings, and above all with the
outstretching of their arms towards the king and Dona Inez. There seems
to be no record as to who worked or designed these tombs, but there can
be little or no doubt that he was a Frenchman, the whole feeling, alike
of the architectural detail and the figures themselves, is absolutely
French; there had been no previous figure sculpture in the country in
any way good enough to lead up to the skill in design and in execution
here shown, nor, with regard to the mere architectural detail, had
Gothic tracery and ornament yet been sufficiently developed for a native
workman to have invented the elaborate cuspings, mouldings, and other
enrichments which make both tombs so pre-eminent above all that came
before them.[74] These tombs, as indeed the whole church, as well as the
neighbouring convent of Batalha, are constructed of a wonderfully fine
limestone, which seems to be practically the same as Caen Stone, and
which, soft and easy to cut when first quarried, grows harder with
exposure and in time, when not in a too shady or damp position, where it
gets black, takes on a most beautiful rich yellow colour.

These tombs, beautiful as they are, do not seem to have any very direct
influence on the work of the next century: it is true that a distinct
advance was made in modelling the effigies of those who lay below, but
apart from that the decoration of these high tombs is in no case even
remotely related to that of the later monuments at Batalha; nor, except
that the national method of church planning was more firmly established
than ever, and that some occasional features such as the cuspings on the
arch-mould of the door of Sao Francisco Santarem, which are copied on an
archaistic door at Batalha, are found in later work, is there much to
point to the great advance that was soon to be