m to try and surpass the size of the Escorial.

[Illustration: PLAN OF MAFRA]

To take the plan rather more in detail. The west front, about 740 feet
long, is flanked by huge square projecting pavilions. The king's and the
queen's apartments are each entered by rather low and insignificant
doorways in the middle of the long straight blocks which join these
pavilions to the church. These doors lead under the palace to large
square courtyards, one on each side of the church, and forming on the
ground floor a cloister with a well-designed arcading of round arches,
separated by Roman Doric shafts. The king's and the queen's blocks are
practically identical, except that in the king's a great oval hall
called the Sala dos actos takes the place of some smaller rooms between
the cloister and the outer wall.

Between these blocks stands the church reached by a great flight of
steps. It has a nave and aisles of three large and one small bay, a dome
at the crossing, and transepts and chancel ending in apses. In front,
flanking towers projecting beyond the aisles are united by a long
entrance porch.

Between the secular and the monastic parts a great corridor runs north
and south, and immediately beyond it a range of great halls, including
the refectory at the north end and the chapter-house at the south.
Further east the great central court with its surrounding cells divides
the monastic entrance and great stair from such domestic buildings as
the kitchen, the bakery, and the lavatory. Four stories of cells occupy
the whole east side.

Though some parts of the palace and monastery such as the two entrance
courts, the library, and the interior of the church, may be better than
might have been expected from the date, it is quite impossible to speak
at all highly of the building as a whole.

It is nearly all of the same height with flat paved roofs; indeed the
only breaks are the corner pavilions and the towers and dome of the
church.

The west side consists of two monotonous blocks, one on each side of the
church, with three stories of windows. At either end is a great square
projecting mass, rusticated on the lowest floor, with short pilaster
strips between the windows on the first, and Corinthian pilasters on the
second. The poor cornice is surmounted by a low attic, within which
rises a hideous ogee plastered roof. (Fig. 100.)

The church in the centre loses much by not rising above the rest of the
front, and the two to