Page:Lisbon and Cintra, Inchbold, 1907.djvu/45

Rh street ascending to the Sé are several stones with Roman inscriptions. These are relics unearthed with others in excavations made for foundations, when the ruins of a Roman theatre became plainly evident; one inscription discovered gave the name of the founder and the theatre's dedication to Nero.

The Magdalena Church lies to the right of the steep, winding street, and in a few minutes you approach that of S. Antonio, a building of the Renaissance style erected after the earthquake on the site of the fallen church. Nearly every street in Lisbon has a church or two or even more, but in comparison with the number very few have architectural merit. The south wall of the Church of S. Antonio bounds the Largo da Sé on one side while the other, shadowed by a few trees stretches out to an iron railing high above the alley beneath, for the hill drops sharply towards the river, and the top stories of the poverty-stricken tenements opposite are nearly on a level with the Largo.

The Cathedral faces the ascending roadway that opens out upon the square, a tragic souvenir of the disasters of past centuries. The front exterior, formed of two towers connected by a massive portico above the large west door, was rebuilt by D. Fernando at the end of the fourteenth century in the primitive style of its erection. Scarcely a square yard of its surface but seems to have been held together by sheer efforts of the restorers in the various vicissitudes of its existence. Twenty-six years of labour were expended in repairing the havoc caused by the great earthquake. To-day restoration is still in process owing to the active influence of the Queen Dona Amelia, but its progress lacks the enthusiasm of former years, owing, it is said, to lack of funds. When one sees sumptuous new buildings in the town, the result of a greater outlay than would be incurred by a speedier restoration of this venerable relic, 23