H OF THE GRACA.

TOMB OF D. PEDRO DE MENEZES.]

[Illustration: FIG. 40.

SANTAREM.

TOMB OF DOM DUARTE DE MENEZES IN S. JOAO DE ALPORAO.]

up a small figure standing on an octagonal corbel under an elaborate
canopy. The whole at the top is finished with a cornice running straight
across from pier to pier, and crested with interlacing and cusped
semicircles, while the flat field below the cornice and above the outer
moulding of the great arch is covered with flaming cressets. (Fig. 40.)

This is perhaps one of the finest of the tombs of the fifteenth century,
and like those at Alcobaca is made of that very fine limestone which is
found in more than one place in Portugal.

[Sidenote: At Abrantes.]

Farther up the Tagus at Abrantes, in the church of Santa Maria do
Castello, are some more tombs of the same date, more than one of which
is an almost exact copy of the princes' tombs at Batalha, though there
is one whose arch is fringed with curious reversed cusping, almost
Moorish in appearance.

[Sidenote: Cloister at Thomar.]

Before turning to the many churches built towards the end of the
fifteenth century, one of the cloisters of the great convent at Thomar
must be mentioned. It is that called 'do Cemiterio,' and was built by
Prince Henry the Navigator, duke of Vizeu, during his grandmastership of
the Order of Christ about the year 1440. Unlike those at Alcobaca or at
Lisbon, which were derived from a Cistercian plan, and were always
intended to be vaulted, this small cloister followed the plan, handed
down from romanesque times, where on each side there is a continuous
arcade resting on coupled shafts. Such cloisters, differing only from
the romanesque in having pointed arches and capitals carved with
fourteenth-century foliage, may still be seen at Santo Thyrso and at Sao
Domingos, Guimaraes, in the north. Here at Thomar the only difference is
that the arches are very much wider, there being but five on each side,
and that the bell-shaped capitals are covered with finely carved
conventional vine-leaves arranged in two rows round the bells. As in the
older cloisters one long abacus unites the two capitals, but the arches
are different, each being moulded as one deep arch instead of two
similar arches set side by side.

CHAPTER VI

LATER GOTHIC

During the last ten or fifteen years of the fifteenth century there was
great activity in building throughout almost the whole country, but it
now become