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Dom Manoel therefore determined to finish the Capellas Imperfeitas, and the work was given to the elder Matheus Fernandes, who had till 1480, when he was followed by João Rodrigues, been master of the royal works at Santarem.
Leaving the Claustro dos Filippes for the present, we must return to Batalha for a little, and then mention some buildings in which the early renaissance details recall some of the work at Thomar. The younger Fernandes had died in 1528, leaving the Capellas Imperfeitas very much in the state in which they still remain.
The plan, indeed, of the church, omitting the Capella do Fundador and the great Capellas Imperfeitas, presents no difficulty as it is only a repetition of the already well-known and national arrangement of nave with aisles, an aisleless transept, with in this case five apsidal chapels to the east.
He had been buried not here, but in his new foundation of Belem, and his son João III. and João de Castilho himself were too much occupied in finishing Belem and in making great additions to Thomar to be able to do much to the Capellas Imperfeitas.
In all this original part of the Capellas Imperfeitas there is little that differs from Huguet's work in the church.
The five eastern apses, of which the largest in the centre is also twice as high as the other four, are probably the oldest part of the building, but all, except the two outer apses and the upper part of the central, have been concealed by the Pateo built by Dom Manoel to unite the church with the Capellas Imperfeitas, or unfinished chapels, beyond.
So after building two beautiful but incongruous arches, João de Castilho went back to his work elsewhere, and the chapels remain Imperfeitas to this day.
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
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.
In the central bay, and in the two next but one on either side of it, and so filling nine openings, is what at first seems to be a kind of reticulated tracery. But on looking closer it is found to be built up of leaf-covered curves and of buds very like those forming the cresting in the Capellas Imperfeitas.
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