the same result is
obtained by the dark cavernous space under the gallery. (Fig. 65.)

[Illustration: FIG. 64.

BELEM.

SOUTH SIDE OF CHURCH OF JERONYMOS.]

[Illustration: FIG. 65.

BELEM.

NAVE OF CHURCH LOOKING WEST.]

On the south side the walls are perfectly plain, broken only by the
windows, whose jambs are enriched with empty niches; on the north the
small windows are placed very high up, the twisted vaulting shafts only
come down a short way to a string course some way below the windows,
leaving a great expanse of cliff-like wall. At the bottom are the
confessional doors, so small that they add greatly to the scale, and
above them tall narrow niches and their canopies. But the nave piers are
the most astonishing part of the whole building. Not more than three
feet thick, they rise up to a height of nearly seventy feet to support a
great stone vault. Four only of the six stand clear from floor to roof,
for the two western are embedded at the bottom in the jambs of the
gallery arches. From their capitals the vaulting ribs spread out in
every direction, being constructively not unlike an English fan vault,
and covering the whole roof with a network of lines. The piers are
round, stand on round moulded pedestals, and are divided into narrow
strips by eight small shafts. The height is divided into four nearly
equal parts by well-moulded rings, encircling the whole pier, and in the
middle of the second of these divisions are corbels and canopies for
statues. The capitals are round and covered with leaves, but scarcely
exceed the piers in diameter. Besides all this each strip between the
eight thin shafts is covered from top to bottom--except where the empty
niches occur--with carving in slight relief, either foliage or, more
usually, renaissance arabesques.

Larger piers stand next the transept, cross-shaped, formed of four of
the thinner piers set together, and about six feet thick. They are like
the others, except that there are corbels and canopies for statues in
the angles, and that a capital is formed by a large moulding carved with
what is meant for egg and tongue. From this, well moulded and carved
arches, round in the central and pointed in the side aisles, cross the
nave from side to side, dividing its vault from that of the transept.

This transept vault, perhaps the largest attempted since the days of the
Romans--for it covers a space measuring about ninety-five feet by
sixty-five--is three bays