FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114  
115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   >>   >|  
e unfinished when Dom Manoel came to the throne in 1495, and though he did much towards carrying on the work it was unfinished when he died in 1521 and so remains to the present day. It is in designing this chapel that Huguet showed his greatest originality and constructive daring: a few feet behind the central apse he planned a great octagon about seventy-two feet in diameter, surrounded by seven apsidal chapels, one on each side except that next the church, while between these chapels are small low chambers where were to be the tombs themselves. There is nothing to show how this chapel was to be united to the church, as the great doorway and vaulted hall were added by Dom Manoel some seventy years later. When Dom Duarte died in 1438, or when Huguet himself died not long after,[81] the work had only been carried out as far as the tops of the surrounding chapels, and so remained all through his son's and his grandson's reigns, although in his will the king had specially asked that the building should be carried on. In all this original part of the Capellas Imperfeitas there is little that differs from Huguet's work in the church. The buttresses and corbel table are very similar (the pinnacles and parapets have been added since 1834), and the apses quite like those of the church. (Fig. 36.) The tracery of the chief windows too is not unlike that of the lantern windows of the founder's chapel except that there is a well-marked transome half-way up--a feature which has been attributed to English influence--while the single windows of the tomb chambers are completely filled with geometric tracery. Inside, the capitals of the chapel arches as well as their rich cuspings are very like those of the founder's chapel; the capitals having octagonal abaci and stiff vine-leaves, and the trefoiled cusps ending in square vine-leaves, while the arch mouldings are, as in King Joao's chapel, more English than French in section. There is nothing now to show how the great central octagon was to be roofed--for the eight great piers which now rise high above the chapel were not built till the time of Dom Manoel--but it seems likely that the vault was meant to be low, and not to rise much above the chapel roofs, finishing, as everywhere else in the church, in a flat, paved terrace. The only important addition made during the reigns of Dom Affonso V. and of Dom Joao II. was that of a second cloister, north of the Claustro Real, and still
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114  
115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

chapel

 

church

 

chapels

 
Huguet
 
windows
 

Manoel

 
carried
 

founder

 

chambers

 

tracery


capitals
 

English

 

reigns

 

leaves

 

central

 
octagon
 

seventy

 

unfinished

 

completely

 
filled

influence

 
attributed
 

single

 

Affonso

 

arches

 

Inside

 

geometric

 
lantern
 

cloister

 

Claustro


unlike

 

marked

 

transome

 

feature

 

important

 

French

 

section

 

roofed

 

mouldings

 

finishing


octagonal

 

terrace

 

cuspings

 

addition

 

ending

 

square

 
trefoiled
 

apsidal

 

surrounded

 

planned