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Updated: June 15, 2025
The semi-circular arch of the Romanesque style gave way to the pointed arch of the Gothic, and wonderful cathedrals slowly lifted their beautiful spires to the sky. The ideal was to build for the glory of God and not only for the eyes of man, so that exquisite carving was lavished upon all parts of the work.
Now with the exception of the anomalous and much later Claustro Real at Batalha, all cloisters in Portugal, before the renaissance, follow two types: one, which is clearly only a modification of the continuous romanesque arcades resting on coupled shafts, has usually a wooden roof, and consists of a row of coupled shafts bearing pointed arches, and sometimes interrupted at intervals by square piers; this form of cloister is found at Santo Thyrso near Guimarães, at São Domingos in Guimarães itself, and in the Cemetery cloister built by Prince Henry the Navigator at Thomar in the fifteenth century.
The examples here shown are rather crude, but effective in the relative scale of parts. The ornament about this window, especially that in the long panel below it and upon the cyma of the soffit above, is Byzantine in character, while the columns, with the exception of the capital of the one at the left, are much more Romanesque.
The interior is a beautiful example of the Romanesque style. The capitals of the columns are fit to serve as models, so strongly typical are the designs, and so exquisite is their workmanship.
Mortels pensés y bien et priés Dieu pour nous. Beneath these lines are a skull and cross-bones, with a tear on each side. Facing the forgotten graves, upon this spot removed from all habitations, is the most beautiful Romanesque doorway of the Albigeois.
Although some, and especially the last two of the buildings described above belong, in part at least, to the time of transition from romanesque to first pointed, and although the group of churches at Coimbra are wholly romanesque, it would be better to have done with all that can be ascribed to a period older than the beginning of the Portuguese monarchy before following Affonso Henriques in his successful efforts to extend his kingdom southwards to the Tagus.
The three portals are massive Romanesque without floral or sculptural decoration of any kind; the central door is larger and surmounted by a large though primitive rosace.
They may be reduced under six heads. That Gothic or Romanesque construction is nobler than Greek construction. That ornamentation is the principal part of architecture. That ornamentation should be visible. That ornamentation should be natural. That ornamentation should be thoughtful.
Tournai, on the upper Scheldt, or Escaut, is remarkable for the heavy Romanesque nave of its cathedral, which is built of the famous local black marble, as well as for its remarkable central cluster of five great towers.
In these churches, therefore, architecture assumed its most utilitarian form and buildings are real fortifications, with battlemented walls, strong and heavy towers, and small windows, and are provided with the other devices of Romanesque architecture of a purely military type." "Time has dealt hardly with them. The kingly power, being entrenched in Paris, developed from the Isle de France.
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