a.

On the nave side, outside the columns, there stands on either
side--placed like the columns on a high pedestal--a pilaster, panelled
and carved with exquisite arabesques. These pilasters have no capitals,
but instead well-moulded corbels, carved with griffin heads, uphold the
entablature, and, by a happy innovation, on the projection thus formed
are pedestals bearing short Corinthian columns. These support the main
entablature whose cornice and frieze are enriched, the one with egg and
tongue and with dentils, and the other with strapwork and with leaves.
In the spandrils above the arch are medallions surrounding the heads of
St. Peter and of St. Paul, St. Peter being especially expressive.

Inside, the background of each tomb recess is covered with strapwork,
surrounding in one case an open and in another a blank window, but
unfortunately the reredos representing the Visit of the Magi is gone,
and its place taken by a very poor picture of Our Lady of Lourdes.

The pendentives with their cherub heads are carried by corbels in the
corners, and the dome is divided by bold ribs, themselves enriched with
carving, into panels filled with strapwork. (Fig. 80.)

This chapel then is of great interest, not only because of the real
beauty of its details but also because it was the first built of a type
which was repeated more than once elsewhere, as, for instance, at
Marceana near Alemquer, on the Tagus, and in the church of Nossa Senhora
dos Anjos at Montemor-o-Velho, not far from Sao Marcos. Of the chapels
at Montemor one at least was built by the same family, and in another
where the reredos--a very fine piece of carving--represents a Pieta,
small angels are seen to weep as they look from openings high up at the
sides.

Perhaps the most successful feature of the design is the happy way in
which corbels take the place of capitals on the lower pilasters of the
front. By this expedient it was possible to keep the upper column short
without having to compare its proportions with those of the pilaster
below, and also by projecting these columns to give the upper part an
importance and an emphasis it would not otherwise have had.

There is no record of who designed this or the similar chapels, but by
1556 enough time had passed since the coming of the French for native
pupils to have learned much from them. There is in the design something
which seems to show that it is not from the hand of a Frenchman, but
from that of so