nd finials surrounding
armillary spheres. Above the panels, except over the end stalls where
sat the Dom Prior and the other dignitaries, and which have higher
canopies, there runs a continuous canopy panelled with Gothic
quatrefoils, and having in front a fringe of interlacing cusps. Between
this and the cresting is a beautiful carved cornice of leaves and of
crosses of the Order of Christ, and the cresting itself is formed by a
number of carved scenes, cities, forests, ships, separated by saintly
figures and surmounted by a carved band from which grow up great curling
leaves and finials. These scenes are supposed to represent the great
discoveries of Vasco da Gama and of Pedro Alvares Cabral in India and in
Brazil, but if this is really so the carvers must have been left to
their own imagination, for the towns do not look particularly Indian,
nor do the forests suggest the tropical luxuriance of Brazil: perhaps
the small three-masted ships alone, with their high bows and stern,
represent the reality. (Fig. 74.)

As a whole the design is entirely Gothic, only at the ends of each row
of stalls is there anything else, and there the panels are carved with
renaissance arabesque, which, being gilt like all the other carving,
stands out well from the dark brown background.

These are almost the only mediaeval stalls left in the country. Those at
Thomar were burnt by the French, those in the Carmo at Lisbon destroyed
by the earthquake, and those at Alcobaca have disappeared. Only at
Funchal are there stalls of the same date, for those at Vizeu seem
rather later and are certainly poorer, their chief interest now being
derived from the old Chinese stamped paper with which their panels are
covered.

[Sidenote: Coimbra, Se Velha.]

If the stalls at Santa Cruz are the only examples of this period still
left on the mainland, the Se Velha possesses the only great mediaeval
reredos. In Spain great structures are found in almost every cathedral
rising above the altar to the vault in tier upon tier of niche and
panel. Richly gilded, with fine paintings on the panels, with delicate
Gothic pinnacles and tabernacle work, they and the metal screens which
half hide them do much to make Spanish churches the most interesting in
the world. Unfortunately in Portugal the bad taste of the eighteenth
century has replaced all those that may have existed by great and heavy
erections of elaborately carved wood. All covered with gold, the
Corinth