is boarding are two bands of ornament
separated by a carved chain, while one band, with the chain, is returned
round the top and bottom of the square. Between each strip of boarding
are six exposed rafters, and these are united alternately by small knots
in the middle and at the ends, and by larger and more elaborate knots at
the ends. In the flat centre under the collar ties each square is again
surrounded by the band of ornament and by the chains, but here band and
chain are also carried across the corners, leaving a large octagon in
the centre with four triangles in the angles. Each octagon has a plain
border about a foot wide, and within it a plain moulding surrounding an
eight-sided hollow space. All these spaces are of some depth; each has
in the centre a pendant, and in each the opening is fringed with tracery
or foliation. In some are elaborate Gothic cuspings, in others long
carved leaves curved at the ends; and in one which happens to come
exactly over an iron tie-rod--for the rods are placed quite
irregularly--the pendant is much longer and is joined to the tie by a
small iron bar. At the sides the roof starts from a cornice of some
depth whose mouldings and ornamentation are more classic than Gothic.
(Fig. 49.)

In the side aisles the cornice is similar, but of greater projection,
and the rafters are joined to each other in much the same way, but more
simply.

[Sidenote: Funchal.]

At Funchal the roof is on a larger scale: there is no division into
squares, but the rafters are knotted together with much greater
elaboration, and the flat part is like the chapel roof at Cintra,
entirely covered with interlacing strips forming an intricate pattern
round hollow octagons.

[Sidenote: Sala dos Cysnes, Cintra.]

The simple boarding of the earlier roofs may well have led to the two
wonderful ceilings at Cintra, those in the Sala dos Cysnes, and in the
Sala dos Brazoes or dos Escudos, but the idea of the many octagons in
the Sala dos Cysnes may have come from some such roof as that at
Caminha, when the octagons are so important a feature of the design. In
that hall swans may have first been painted for Dom Joao, but the roof
has clearly been remade since then, possibly under Dom Manoel. The gilt
ornament on the mouldings seem even later, but may of course have been
added afterwards, though it is not very unlike some of the carving on
the roof at Caminha, an undoubted work of Dom Manoel's time.

This great roo