ace.

As a matter of fact the court is not arcaded--there is only a row of
rough plastered arches along one side; there are five and not four
towers; there is no trace now of any fine painted decoration inside;
and, in short, it is inconceivable that, even to please a king, an
architect of the Italian renaissance could ever have designed such a
building.

The plan of the castle is roughly square with a round tower at three of
the corners, and at the fourth or southern corner a much larger tower,
rounded in front and projecting further from the walls. The main front
is turned to the south-west, and on that side, as well as on the
south-eastern, are the habitable parts of the castle. Farm buildings run
along inside and outside the north-western, while the north-eastern side
is bounded only by a high wall.

Half-way along the main front is the entrance gate, a plain pointed arch
surmounted by two shields, that on the right charged with the royal
arms, and that on the left with those of the Barao d'Alvito, to whose
descendant, the Marques d'Alvito, the castle still belongs. There is
also an inscription stating that the castle, begun in 1494 by the orders
of Dom Joao II. and finished in the time of Dom Manoel, was built by Dom
Diogo Lobo, Barao d'Alvito.[97]

In the court a stair, carried on arches, goes up to the third floor
where are the chief rooms in the house. None of them, which open one
from the other or from a passage leading to the chapel in the
westernmost corner, are in any way remarkable except for their windows.
The ceilings of the principal rooms are of wood and panelled, but are
clearly of much later date than the building and are not to be compared
with those at Cintra. Most of the original windows--for those on the
main front have been replaced by plain square openings--are even more
Eastern than those at Cintra. They are nearly all of two lights--there
is one of a single light in the passage--but are without the square
framing. Each window has three very slender white marble shafts, with
capitals and with abaci moulded on each side. On some of the capitals
are carved twisted ropes, while others, as in a window in the large
southern tower, are like those at Cintra. As the shafts stand a little
way back from the face of the wall the arches are of two orders, of
which only the inner comes down to the central shaft. (Fig. 47.)

These arches, all horseshoe in shape, are built of red brick with very
wide mo