, is
that of Sta. Clara at Santarem, fast falling to pieces. In it there are
three arches, here three-centred, to each bay, and instead of projecting
buttresses wide pilasters, like the columns, Doric below, Ionic above.

[Sidenote: Guarda, Reredos.]

On first seeing the great reredos in the cathedral of Guarda, the
tendency is to attribute it to a period but little later than the works
of Master Nicolas at Sao Marcos or of Joao de Ruao at Coimbra. But on
looking closer it is seen that a good deal of the ornament--the
decoration of the pilasters and of the friezes--as well as the
appearance of the figures, betray a later date--a date perhaps as late
as the end of the reign of Dom Joao III. (Fig. 91.)

Though the reredos is very much larger and of finer design, the figures
have sufficient resemblance to those in the chapel of the Holy Sacrament
in the Se Velha at Coimbra, put up in 1566, to show that they must be
more or less contemporary, the Guarda reredos being probably the
older.[159]

Filling the whole of the east end of the apse of the Capella Mor, the
structure rises in a curve up to the level of the windows. Without the
beautiful colouring of Master Vlimer's work at Coimbra, or the charm of
the reredos at Funchal, with figures distinctly inferior to those by
Master Nicolas at Sao Marcos, this Guarda reredos is yet a very fine
piece of work, and is indeed the only large one of its kind which still
survives.

It is divided into three stories, each about ten feet high, with a
half-story below resting on a plain plinth.

Each story is divided into large square panels by pilasters or columns
set pretty close together, the topmost story having candelabrum shafts,
the one below it Corinthian columns, the lowest Doric pilasters, and the
half-story below pedestals for these pilasters. Entablatures with
ornamental friezes divide each story, while at the top the centre is
raised to admit of an arch, an arrangement probably copied from Joao de
Ruao's altar-piece.

In the half-story at the bottom are half-figures of the twelve Apostles,
four under each of the square panels at the sides, and one between each
pair of pilasters.

Above is represented, on the left the Annunciation, on the right the
Nativity; in the centre, now hidden by a hideous wooden erection, there
is a beautiful little tabernacle between two angels. Between the
pilasters, as between the columns above, stand large figures of
prophets.

In the nex