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Other beautiful tiled interiors are those of the Matriz at Caldas da Rainha, and at Caminha on the Minho. Without seeing these tiled churches it is impossible to realise how beautiful they really are, and how different are these tiles from all modern ones, whose hard smooth glaze and mechanical perfection make them cold and anything but pleasing.
Here all is purely Gothic, there there is a mixture of Gothic and renaissance details, and towards the west front an exuberance of carving which cannot be called either Gothic or anything else, so strange and unusual is it. Another church of almost exactly the same date is that of São João Baptista, the Matriz of Villa do Conde.
The tower is exactly like that at Villa do Conde except that the bottom story is not rusticated, and that instead of a dome there is an octagonal spire covered with yellow and white tiles. As at Azurara, the parish church of Santa Maria dos Anjos at Caminha is in plan very like the Matriz at Villa do Conde.
In the north-westernmost chapel stands the font, an elaborate work of the early renaissance; an octagonal bowl with twisted sides resting on a short twisted base. Not unlike the vaulting at Villar is that of the Matriz or mother church of Alvito, a small town in the Alemtejo, nor can it be very much later in date.
This church, Santa Maria dos Olivaes, was the Matriz or mother church of all those held, first by the Templars and later by their successors, the Order of Christ, not only in Portugal but even in Africa, Brazil, and in India. Of so high a dignity it is scarcely worthy, being but a very simple building neither large nor richly ornamented.
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