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At the east end is a great reredos given by Ayres and containing figures of himself and of his wife Dona Guiomar de Castro, while opening from the north side of the nave is a beautiful domed chapel built by Dona Antonia de Vilhena as a tomb-house for her husband, Diogo da Silva, who died in 1556. In it also lies his elder brother Lourenço, seventh lord of Vagos.
Very quickly the fame of these French workers spread across the country, and they or their pupils were employed to design tombs, altar-pieces, or chapels outside of Coimbra. Perhaps the da Silvas, lords of Vagos, were among the very first to employ them, and in their chapel of São Marcos, some eight or nine miles from Coimbra, more than one example of their handiwork may still be seen.
The da Silvas had long had here a manor-house with a chapel, and in 1452 Dona Brites de Menezes, the wife of Ayres Gomes da Silva, the fourth lord of Vagos, founded a small Jeronymite monastery. Of her chapel, designed by Gil de Souza, little now remains, for the chancel was rebuilt in the next century and the nave in the seventeenth.
On it are three coats of arms, Dom Fernão's, those of his wife, Maria de Vilhena, and between them his and hers quartered. Most of the tombs, five in all, are found in the chancel which was rebuilt by Ayres da Silva, fifth lord of Vagos, the grandson of Dona Brites, in 1522 and 1523.
While the smaller details remain partly French, the dome with its bold ribs suggests Italy, and it is known that Dom Manoel, and after him Dom João, sent young men to Italy for study. In any case the result is something neither Italian nor French. Even more Italian is the tomb of Dona Antonia's father-in-law, João da Silva, sixth lord of Vagos, erected in 1559 and probably by the same sculptor.
Opposite Dona Brites lies the second count of Aveiras, who died in 1672 and whose tomb is without interest, and opposite Ayres, his son João da Silva, sixth lord of Vagos, who died in 1559.
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