BATALIIA. S9 



cised in the founding of this glorious monastery. All 

 honour to both the noble founders for the princely design, 

 right royally carried out to completion ! 



The great cloisters, examined separately and apart from 

 the adjoining buildings, present perhaps as attractive and 

 pleasing a view as any to be found herein : indeed, they 

 can scarcely be too highly extolled ; in general architec- 

 tural design resembling those at Belem, they are both 

 very much larger and far more elaborately carved. Every 

 arch is filled with tracery of the richest description, and 

 the restoration of those parts which have fallen into decay 

 has been accomplished with a care and a finish which 

 leaves nothing to desire, and which redounds to the credit 

 and to the taste of the munificent Dom Fernando. The 

 tracery of scarcely two arches is alike, and the fertility of 

 invention of pattern and the elaborate execution of an 

 intricate design equally strike one with astonishment. At 

 one corner of this cloister stands a fountain of remarkable 

 elegance, and this is perhaps the most favourable point for 

 grasping in one coup d'oail the most telling picture of this 

 fairy-like scene. 



The little cloisters demand no special comment, and I 

 pass on to the chapter-house — a square room, with stone- 

 vaulted roof, of such large dimensions as to impress us 

 with astonishment how it could be thus spanned by a 

 heavy stone roof. By such rough measurement as I was 

 able to accomplish, I found the diameter of the room to be 

 about ninety-eight feet; but if this is not quite accurate, 

 at all events it is nearer the true figure than that of 

 Colonel Landmann,* who, though he S23eaks of it as a 

 masterpiece of architecture, calls it a square of sixty-four 

 feet ; but, in truth, it is an enormous breadth to be thus 

 vaulted over with stone without the support of a central 

 column, as is the more general form we adopt iu chapter- 

 * Observations on Portugal, vol. ii. p. 239. 



