United States or Burkina Faso ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
There are altogether four doors, one leading to the servery, one to the Sala das Pegas, one to a spiral stair in the corner of the pateo, and one to the dining-room. This dining-room projects somewhat to the west so as to leave space for a window looking south to the mountains, and one looking north across a small court, as well as one looking west.
East of the fireplace a door having a wide flat ogee head leads into a small porch built in the corner of the pateo to protect the passage to the Sala das Pegas, the first of the rooms to the south of this pateo. In the angle formed by the end wall of the Sala dos Cysnes and the side of the Sala das Pegas there is a small low room now called the Sala de Dom Sebastião or do Conselho.
The Sala das Pegas, like the Swan Hall, is called after its ceiling, for on it are painted in 136 triangular compartments, 136 magpies, each holding in one foot a red rose and in its beak a scroll inscribed 'Por Bem. Possibly this ceiling, which on each side slopes up to a flat parallelogram, is more like that painted for Dom João than is that of the Swan Hall, but even here some of the mouldings are clearly renaissance, and the painting has been touched up, but anyhow it was already called Camera das Pegas in the time of Dom Duarte; further, tradition tells that the magpies were painted there by Dom João's orders, and why.
From the Sala das Pegas one door leads up a few steps into the Sala das Sereias, and another to the dining-room. This Sala das Sereias, so called from the mermaids painted on the ceiling, is a small room some eighteen feet square. It is lit by a two-light window opening towards the courtyard, a window just like those of the Sala das Pegas and of the Sala dos Cysnes.
At the eastern end is a large seat, rather higher than the bench and provided with arms, doubtless for the king, and tiled like the rest. Passing again from the Swan Hall the way leads through the porch into the Sala das Pegas or of the magpies. The door from the porch to the room is one of the most beautiful parts of Dom João's work.
On the second row of tiles there are alternately a tall blue fleur-de-lys with a yellow centre, and a lower bunch of leaves, three blue at the top and one yellow on each side; the ground throughout is white. Also of Dom João's time are the tiles in the Sala das Pegas, where they are of the regular Moorish pattern blue, green and brown on a white ground, and where four go to make up the pattern.
In others, like the door to the Sala das Pegas at Cintra, and so probably derived from Moorish sources, the arch is made of three or more convex curves, and in others again the arch is half of a straight-sided polygon, while in many of the more elaborate all or many of these may be used together to make one complicated whole of interlacing mouldings and hanging cusps.
Some of its walls, especially that between it and the Sala das Pegas, are very thick and seem to be older than the time of Dom João.
The rebuilding of the church was ordered by Dom Manoel, but the style called after him is only found in the chancel and in the west door. The chancel, square and vaulted, is entered by a wide and high arch, consisting, like the door to the Sala das Pegas at Cintra, of a series of moulded convex curves. The west door is not unlike that at Gollegã.
High above the dark tile roofs there tower the two strange kitchen chimneys, huge conical spires ending in round funnels, now all plastered, but once covered with a pattern of green and white tiles. Entrance Court. 2. Sala dos Cysnes. 3. Central Pateo. 4. Sala das Pegas. 5. " " Sereias. 5ª. " do Conselho. 6. Sala da Jantar. 7. Servery. 8. Sala dos Arabes. 9. Chapel. 10. Kitchen. 11.
Word Of The Day