Page:Lisbon and Cintra, Inchbold, 1907.djvu/82

Rh tops of the columns to form the beautifully groined roofs. The arches beneath the coro alto are richly sculptured. The Capella Mor at the end of the nave is of later date, and its slabs of polished marble and Corinthian pillars of the Joannine Renaissance are a disturbing contrast to the original design. The sarcophagi supported on effigies of elephants are of D. Manuel, his Queen Maria, D. João III, and other royal personages.

This Cathedral erected in honour of a great discovery is fast becoming a pantheon of the nation's most celebrated men. In the transept to the right are tombs containing the remains of Vasco da Gama, bought for their weight in gold, and of Camões, the great epic poet of Portugal, whose ashes were transferred from the ruined Convent of Santa Anna in the year 1880. The chief poet of the nineteenth century, Almeida Garrett, rests beneath the black pall, floral wreaths and immortelles in the other transept. In the baptistery lies João de Deus, a scholar whose methods of teaching are universal in Portugal, and a singer of lyric poems of graceful purity of style. The sacristy entered from the church has a pillar in the centre, which supports a beautiful network of groined vaulting. The west door, now closed, is small but again rich in carving. The figures of D. Manuel and D. Maria kneel right and left, while the other sculptury represents the Annunciation, the Birth of Christ, and the Adoration of the Magi. The tower with its small dome, called Torre de Cinatti after the architect who designed it, was erected at a much later period, and is out of character with the rest of the noble building.

Through a door beyond this west porch we enter the cloisters, than which are none more beautiful in the country except those of Batalha. They are of two stories, uplifted by twenty-four arches filled with beautiful 56