op, the drip-mould grows into a large trefoil with crockets
outside and an armillary sphere within. At the sides tall thin
buttresses end high above the door in sharp carved pinnacles and bear
under elaborate canopies many figures of saints.[115] Two other
pinnacles rise from the top of the arch, and between them are more
saints. In the middle stands Our Lady, and from her canopy a curious
broken and curving moulding runs across the other pinnacles and canopies
to the sides.

But that which gives to the whole design its chief beauty is the deep
shadow cast by the large arch thrown across from one main buttress to
the other just under the parapet. This arch, moulded and enriched with
four-leaved flowers, is fringed with elaborate cusps, irregular in size,
which with rounded mouldings are given a trefoil shape by small
beautifully carved crockets. (Fig. 55.)

Except the two round buttresses at the west end and one on the north
side which has Manoelino pinnacles, all are the same, breaking into a
cluster of Gothic pinnacles rather more than half-way up and ending in
one large square crocketed pinnacle very like those at Batalha. The roof
being flat and paved there is no gable at the west end; there is a band
of carving for cornice, then a moulding, and above it a parapet of
flattened quatrefoils, in each of which is an armillary sphere, and at
the top a cresting, alternately of cusped openings and crosses of the
Order of Christ, most of which, however, have been broken away. Of the
windows all are wide and pointed, without tracery and deeply splayed.
The one in the central bay next the porch has niches and canopies at the
side for statues and jambs not unlike those designed some years after at
Belem. There is also a certain resemblance between the door here and the
great south entrance to Belem, though this one is of far greater beauty,
being more free from over-elaboration and greatly helped by the shadow
of the high arch.

So far the design has shown nothing very abnormal; but for one or two
renaissance details it is all of good late Gothic, with scarcely any
Manoelino features. It is also more pleasing than any other contemporary
building in Portugal, and the detail, though very rich, is more
restrained. This may be due to the nationality of Joao de Castilho, for
some of the work is almost Spanish, for example the buttresses, the
pinnacles, and the door with its trefoiled drip-mould.

If, however, the two eastern ba