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In this phase, the composition is still always Gothic, though the details may be renaissance. At times, of course, all phases are found together, but those which most distinctly deserve the name, Manoelino, are the first and second. The shape of the arches, whether of window or of door, is one of the most characteristic features of Manoelino.
It is throughout Manoelino, and that too with hardly an admixture of Gothic. There is no naturalism, and hardly any suggestion of the renaissance, and as befits a fort it is without any of the exuberance so common to buildings of this time.
Beginning with late Gothic he was soon influenced by the surrounding Manoelino; at Belem he first met renaissance artists, at Alcobaça he either used Manoelino and renaissance side by side or else treated renaissance in a way of his own, though shortly after, at Belem again, he came to use renaissance details more and more fully.
All the shafts are round, with round moulded bases and round Manoelino caps. The central shaft has a ring moulding half-way up, and all, including the flat arches and the vesicae, are either covered with leaves, or are twisted into ropes, but without any of that wonderful delicacy which is so striking at Batalha.
It is not too much to say that, except the great entrance to the Capellas Imperfeitas, this is the most beautiful of all Manoelino doorways; in no other is the detail so refined nor has any other so satisfactory a framing. Unfortunately the construction has not been good, so that the upper part is now all full of cracks and gaping joints. Since Dom João III. was more devoted to the Church than
These pinnacles and this crested parapet are found everywhere all round the church, though the pinnacles on the aisle walls from which the plain flying buttresses spring are quite different, being of a Manoelino design. Again the north transept door has evidently been inspired by the richness of Batalha.
Both porch and chancel were built by Archbishop Dom Diego de Souza about the year 1530 a most remarkable date when the purely Gothic work here is compared with buildings further south, where Manoelino had already been succeeded by various forms of the classic renaissance. The porch stretches right across the west end of the church, and is of three bays.
The panels behind the upper tier are divided by twisted Manoelino shafts bearing Gothic pinnacles, and the upper part of each panel is enriched with deeply undercut leaves and finials surrounding armillary spheres.
The bases and caps of these, as of the other larger shafts, are of the usual Manoelino type, round with a hollow eight-sided abacus.
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.
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