pring.
These are a mass of carving, armillary spheres, acanthus leaves, shields
upheld by well-carved figures, crosses, and at the top small cherubs
holding the royal crown.

The inner side of the door has a segmental head and on either jamb are
tall twisted shafts. A moulded string course running round just above
the level once reached by the top of the stalls turns up over the window
as a hood-mould.

At the same time much was done to enrich the old Templars' church. All
the shafts were covered with gilt diaper and the capitals with gold;
crockets were fixed to the outer sides of the pointed arches of the
central octagon, and inside it were placed figures of saints standing on
Gothic corbels under canopies of beautiful tabernacle work. Similar
statues stand on the vaulting shafts of the outer polygon and between
them, filling in the spaces below the round-headed windows, are large
paintings in the Flemish style common to all Portuguese pictures of that
time--of the Nativity, of the Visit of the Magi, of the Annunciation,
and of the Virgin and Child.

To-day the only part of the south side visible down to the ground level
is the eastern bay in which opens the great door. This is one of the
works which Joao de Castilho claims as his, and on one of the jambs
there is carved a strap, held by two lion's paws on which are some
letters supposed to be his signature, and some figures which have been
read as 1515, probably wrongly, for there seems to have been no
renaissance work done in Portugal except by Sansovino till the coming of
Master Nicolas to Belem in 1517 or later.[114] If it is 1515 and gives
the date, it must mean the year when the mere building was finished, not
the carving, for the renaissance band can hardly have been done till
after his return from Belem.

The doorway is one of great beauty, indeed is one of the most beautiful
pieces of work in the kingdom. The opening itself is round-headed with
three bands of carving running all round it, separated by slender shafts
of which the outermost up to the springing of the arch is a beautiful
spiral with four-leaved flowers in the hollows. Of the carved bands the
innermost is purely renaissance, with candelabra, medallions, griffins
and leaves all most beautifully cut in the warm yellow limestone. On the
next band are large curly leaves still Gothic in style and much
undercut; and in the last, four-leaved flowers set some distance one
from the other.

At the t