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In it there are three arches, here three-centred, to each bay, and instead of projecting buttresses wide pilasters, like the columns, Doric below, Ionic above. On first seeing the great reredos in the cathedral of Guarda, the tendency is to attribute it to a period but little later than the works of Master Nicolas at São Marcos or of João de Ruão at Coimbra.
The lower cloister is roofed with a beautiful three-centred vault with many ribs, and several of the doors are good examples of early renaissance. More like the other cloisters, but probably somewhat later in date, is that of Sta. Clara at Santarem, fast falling to pieces.
Behind, the whole space is spanned by a three-centred arch, panelled like the passage arches at Thomar. All the work is most exquisite, but it is not easy to see how the horizontal cornice was to be brought into harmony with the higher windows intended on the other seven sides, nor does the renaissance detail, beautiful though it is, agree very well with the exuberant Manoelino of the rest.
The small cloister of Santa Barbara is the most pleasing of all those which João de Castilho was able to finish. In order not to hide the west front of the church its arches had to be kept very low. They are three-centred and almost flat, while the vault is even flatter, the bays being divided by a stone beam resting on beautifully carved brackets.
The four lantern arches have the flattened shape of the latest Gothic; but, oddly enough, the variety here chosen is the English four-centred arch, not the usual French shape, three-centred, elliptic, or actually flat-headed. But both the English and the French form are quite unsuited for pier-arches, and for lantern arches yet more.
Though this upper cloister adds much to the picturesqueness of the whole it is not very pleasing in itself, as the three-centred arches are often too wide and flat, and yet it is of great interest as showing how João de Castilho was in 1518 beginning to accept renaissance forms though still making them assume a Manoelino dress. But in the door of the little parish church of Sta.
Reached by a picturesque stair on the south side, the three-centred arches each enclose two or three smaller round arches, with the spandrils merely pierced or sometimes cusped. The mouldings are simple but not at all classic.
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