The night of July 7, 1497, the last Vasco da Gama and his captains were to spend on shore before starting on the momentous voyage which ended at Calicut, was passed by them in prayer, in a small chapel built by Prince Henry the Navigator for the use of sailors, and dedicated to Nossa Senhora do Restello.
Two years later he landed again in the Tagus, with a wonderful story of the difficulties overcome and of the vast wealth which he had seen in the East. As a thankoffering Dom Manoel at once determined to found a great monastery for the Order of St. Jerome on the spot where stood Prince Henry's chapel. Little time was lost, and the first stone was laid on April 1 of the next year.
The first architect was that Boutaca who, about ten years before, had built the Jesus Church at Setubal for the king's nurse, Justa Rodrigues, and to him is probably due the plan. Boutaca was succeeded in 1511 by Lourenço Fernandes, who in turn gave place to João de Castilho in 1517[129] or 1522.
It is impossible now to say how much each of these different architects contributed to the building as finished. At Setubal Boutaca had built a church with three vaulted aisles of about the same height. The idea was there carried out very clumsily, but it is quite likely that Belem owes its three aisles of equal height to his initiative even though they were actually carried out by some one else.
Judging also from the style, for the windows show many well-known Manoelino features, while the detail of the great south door is more purely Gothic, they too and the walls may be the work of Boutaca or of Lourenço Fernandes, while the great door is almost certainly that of João de Castilho.
In any case, when João de Castilho came the building was not nearly finished, for in 1522 he received a thousand cruzados towards building columns and the transept vault.[130]
But even more important to the decoration of the building than either Boutaca or João de Castilho was the coming of Master Nicolas, the Frenchman[131] whom we shall see at work at Coimbra and at São Marcos. Belem seems to have been the first place to which he came after leaving home, and we soon find him at work there on the statues of the great south door, and later on those of the west door, where, with the exception of the Italian door at Cintra, is carved what is probably the earliest piece of renaissance detail in the country.