long from north to south and two wide from
east to west; formed of innumerable ribs springing from these points--of
which those at the north and south ends are placed immediately above the
arches leading to the chapels--it practically assumes in the middle the
shape of a flat oblong dome.

Now, though the walls are thick, there are no buttresses, and the skill
and daring required to build a vault sixty-five feet wide and about a
hundred feet high resting on side walls on one side and on piers
scarcely six feet thick on the other must not only excite the admiration
of every one, especially when it is remembered that no damage was caused
by the great earthquake which shook Lisbon to pieces in 1755, but must
also raise the wish that what has been so skilfully done here had been
also done in the Capellas Imperfeitas at Batalha.

At the north end of the main transept are two doors, one leading to the
cloister and one to the sacristy. A straight and curved moulding
surrounds their trefoil heads under a double twining hood-mould.
Outside, other mouldings rise high above the whole to form a second
large trefoil, whose hood-mould curves into two great crocketed circles
before rising to a second ogee.

The chancel has a round and the chapels pointed entrance arches, formed,
as are the jambs, of two bands of carving and two thick twisted
mouldings. Tomb recesses, added later, with strapwork pediments line the
chapels, and at the entrance to the chancel are two pulpits, for the
Gospel and Epistle. These are rather like Joao de Ruao's pulpit at
Coimbra in outline, but supported on a large capital are quite Gothic,
as are the large canopies which rise above them.

Strong arches with cable mouldings lead to the space under the gallery,
which is supported by an elaborate vault, elliptical in the central and
pointed in the side aisles.

In the gallery itself--only to be entered from the upper cloister--are
the choir stalls, of Brazil wood, added in 1560, perhaps from the
designs of Diogo da Carta.[134]

With the earlier stalls at Santa Cruz and at Funchal, and the later at
Evora, these are almost the only ones left which have not been replaced
by rococo extravagances.

The back is divided into large panels three stalls wide, each containing
a painting of a saint, and separated by panelled and carved Corinthian
pilasters. Below each painting is an oblong panel with, in the centre, a
beautifully carved head looking out of a circle