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The Ilha de San Thome, or island of St Thomas, which is said to have received its name from the saint to whom the chapel of the great monastery of Thomar is dedicated, and to which all the African discoveries are subjected in spirituals, has its southern extremity almost directly under the equinoctial, and is a very high land of an oval shape, about fifteen leagues in breadth, by twelve leagues long.
Also at Thomar, but in the parish church of São João Baptista, are some pictures ascribed by Justi to a pupil of Quentin Matsys. Now it is known that a Portuguese called Eduard became a pupil of Matsys in 1504, and four years later a Vrejmeester of the guild. So perhaps they may be by this Eduard or by some fellow-pupil.
The abacus of each column is set diagonally to the diameter of the octagon, and between it and the lower side of the architrave are interposed thin blocks of stone rounded at the ends. Like the Conceicão at Thomar this too dates from near the end of Dom João's reign, having been founded about 1550.
With regard to Thomar, where the detail is even more curious and Indian-looking, the temptation to look for Indian models is still stronger, owing to the peculiar position which the Order of Christ at Thomar now held, for the knights of that order had for some time possessed complete spiritual jurisdiction over India and all other foreign conquests.
The whole is a very curious piece of work, the capitals and bases being, with the exception of some details at Thomar and at Batalha, the most strange of the details of that period, though, were the small corbels left out, they would differ but little from other Manoelino capitals, while the bases may be only an attempt of a Moorish workman to copy the interpenetration of late Gothic.
A little later at Thomar, having a free hand for at Belem he had had to follow out the lines laid down by Boutaca he discarded Manoelino and Gothic alike in favour of renaissance. In this final adoption of the renaissance he was soon followed by many others, even before he laid down his charge at Thomar in 1551.
In such towns as Toledo, Moorish builders were employed not only in the many parish churches but even in the cathedral, and in Portugal we find Moors at Thomar even as late as the beginning of the sixteenth century, when such names as Omar, Mafamedi, Bugimaa, and Bebedim occur in the list of workmen.
But the spirit of the nation was changed, she dared not press her claims, and few supported the prior of Crato, whose right was at least as good as had been that of Dom João I., and so Philip was elected at Thomar in April 1580.
I am happy to be able to add that we denounced this vandalism as soon as we got back to Lisbon, at the same time so exciting King Ferdinand's truly artistic feelings by our description of Thomar that he went there in his turn, and, thanks to him, the preservation of that unique edifice was thenceforth assured.
At Thomar, however, probably because it was already common to put the stalls in a gallery over the west door, it was determined to build the new Coro to the west, and this was done by breaking through the two westernmost sides of the sixteen-sided building and inserting a large pointed arch.
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