d have square abaci, while those of the nave are
all of the time of King Joao II. or of King Manoel. At about the same
time some small and picturesque windows were inserted above the smaller
apses on the east side of the transept, and rather later was built the
chapel to the north-east of the nave, which is entered through a
segmental arch whose jambs and head are well carved with early
renaissance foliage and figures, and which contains the simple tomb of a
bishop. The pulpits, organs, and stalls, both in the chancel and in the
western choir gallery, are fantastic and late, but the great reredos
which rises in three divisions to the springing of the vault is the
largest and one of the finest in the country, but belonging as it does
to a totally different period and school must be left for another
chapter.
[Sidenote: Nossa Senhora do Vencimento do Monte do Carmo, Lisbon.]
Much need not be said about the Carmo at Lisbon, another church of the
same date, as it has been almost entirely wrecked by the earthquake of
1755. The victory of Aljubarrota was due perhaps even more to the grand
Constable of Portugal, Dom Nuno Alvares Pereira, than to the king
himself, and, like the king, the Constable commemorated the victory by
founding a monastery, a great Carmelite house in Lisbon. The church of
Nossa Senhora do Vencimento do Monte do Carmo stands high up above the
central valley of Lisbon on the very verge of the steep hill. Begun in
July 1389 the foundations twice gave way, and it was only after the
Constable had dismissed his first master and called in three men of the
same name, Affonso, Goncalo, and Rodrigo Eannes, that a real beginning
could be made, and it was not finished till 1423, when it was
consecrated; at the same time the founder assumed the habit of a
Carmelite and entered his own monastery to die eight years later, and to
become an object of veneration to the whole people. In plan the church
was almost exactly like that of Batalha, though with a shorter nave of
only five bays.[84] To the east of the transept are still five
apses--the best preserved part of the whole building--having windows and
buttresses like those at Batalha. The only other part of the church
which has escaped destruction is the west door, a large simple opening
of six moulded arches springing from twelve shafts whose capitals are
carved with foliage. From what is left it seems that the church was more
like what Batalha was planned to be, rat
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