Unfortunately the simplicity of the design is spoilt by the broken and curly volutes which sprawl across the aisles, by ugly finials at the corners, and by a rather clumsy balustrading to the porch.
The interior of the Misericordia at Beja, a square, divided into nine smaller vaulted squares by arches resting on fine Corinthian columns, with altar recesses beyond, looks as if it belonged to the time of Dom João III., but if so the front must have been added later. This is very simple, but at the same time strong and unique. The triple division inside is marked by three great rusticated Doric pilasters on which rest a simple entablature and parapet. Between are three round arches, enclosing three doors of which the central has a pointed pediment, while over the others a small round window lights the interior.
[Sidenote: Oporto, Nossa Senhora da Serra do Pilar.]
But by far the most original of all the buildings of this later renaissance is the monastery of Nossa Senhora da Serra do Pilar in Villa Nova de Gaya, the suburb of Oporto which lies south of the Douro. Standing on a high granite knoll, which rises some fifty feet above the country to the south, and descends by an abrupt precipice on the north to the deep-flowing river, here some two hundred yards wide, and running in a narrow gorge, the monastery and its hill have more than once played an important part in history. From there Wellington, in 1809, was able to reconnoitre the French position across the river while his army lay hidden behind the rocks; and it was from a creek just a little to the east that the first barges started for the north bank with the men who seized the unfinished seminary and held it till enough were across to make Soult see he must retreat or be cut off. Later, in 1832, the convent, defended for Queen Maria da Gloria, was much knocked about by the besieging army of Dom Miguel.
The Augustinians had begun to build on the hill in 1540, but none of the present monastery can be earlier than the seventeenth century, the date 1602 being found in the cloister.
The plan of the whole building is most unusual and original: the nave is a circle some seventy-two feet in diameter, surmounted by a dome, and surrounded by eight shallow chapels, of which one contains the entrance and another is prolonged to form a narrow chancel. This chancel leads to a larger square choir behind the high altar, and east of it is a round cloister sixty-five feet across. The various monastic buildings are grouped round the choir and cloister, leaving the round nave standing free. The outside of the circle is two stories in height, divided by a plain cornice carried round the pilasters which mark the recessed chapels within. The face of the wall above this cornice is set a little back, and the pilaster strips are carried up a short distance to form a kind of pedestal, and are then set back with a volute and obelisk masking the offset. The main cornice has two large corbels to each bay, and carries a picturesque balustrading within which rises a tile roof covering the dome and crowned by a small lantern at the top. The west door has two Ionic columns on each side; a curious niche with corbelled sides rises above it to the lower cornice; and the church is lit by a square-headed window pierced through the upper part of each bay. Only the pilasters, cornices, door and window dressings are of granite ashlar, all the rest being of rubble plastered and whitewashed.