panels, set in the shape of a
cross, each panel having in it another panel set diagonally to form a
diamond. At the crossing, which is crowned by a square coffered dome,
the spandrils are filled with curious winged heads, while the semi-dome
of the apse is covered with narrow ribs. The windows are exactly like
those outside, but the west door has over it a very refined though plain
pediment.

So far, beyond the great refinement of the details, there has been
nothing very characteristic of Joao de Castilho, but when we find that
the pilasters of the choir and apse, as well as the choir and transept
arches, are panelled in that very curious way--with strips crossing each
other at long intervals to form diamonds--which Joao employed in the
passage arches in the Thomar dormitory and in the loggia at Batalha, it
would be natural enough to conclude that this chapel is his work, and
indeed the best example of what he could do with classic details.

Now under the west window of the north aisle there is a small tablet
with the following inscription in Portuguese[154]:--'This chapel was
erected in A.D. 1572, but profaned in 1810 was restored in 1848 by L. L.
d'Abreu,' etc.

Of course in 1572 Joao de Castilho had been long dead, but the
inscription was put up in 1848, and it is quite likely that by then L.
L. d'Abreu and his friends had forgotten or did not know that even as
late as the sixteenth century dates were sometimes still reckoned by the
era of Caesar, so finding it recorded that the chapel had been built in
the year 1572 they took for granted that it was A.D. 1572, whereas it
may just as well have been E.C. 1572, that is A.D. 1534, just the very
time when Joao de Castilho was building the dormitory in the convent and
using there the same curious panelling. Besides in 1572 this form of
renaissance had long been given up and been replaced by a heavier and
more classic style brought from Italy. It seems therefore not
unreasonable to claim this as Joao de Castilho's work, and to see in it
one of the earliest as well as the most complete example of this form of
renaissance architecture, a form which prevailed side by side with the
work of the Frenchmen and their pupils for about fifteen years.

Now in some respects this chapel recalls some of the earlier renaissance
buildings in Italy, and yet no part of it is quite Italian, nor can it
be called Spanish. The barrel vault here and in the dormitory chapel in
the convent ar