Portuguese Architecture (Paperback)

Excerpt: ...are bound round with a piece of rope. The semicircular arches consist of one round moulding with round cusps. A hollow mould runs down the two jambs and over the two arches, turning up as an ogee at the top. Beyond this hollow are two tall round shafts ending in large crocketed finials, while tied to them with carved cords is a curious hood-mould, forming three reversed cusps ending in large finials, one in the centre and one over each of the arches, and at the two ends curling across the hollow like a cut-off branch. Here then we have an example not only of the use of the round moulding, but also of naturalistic treatment which was afterwards sometimes carried to excess. Probably this window may be rather later in date than at least the foundation of the churches of Nossa Senhora do Popolo at Caldas da Rainha or of the Jesus Convent at Setubal; but it is in itself so good an example of the change from the simple ogee to the round broken moulding and of the use of naturalistic features, that it has been taken first. Caldas da Rainha. In 1485 Queen Leonor, wife of Dom Jo