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Versão Portuguesa

Chapter House Window

The Manueline Nave is garnished - both inside and outside - by profuse sculptural symbolic ornamentations, heraldic and sacred. All of the architectural elements - talon, pinnacles, buttresses, windows, etc - are surrounded by a profound plasticity due to the figurative themes, to the point of dissimulating their architectural and structural functions.
The most emblematic case of this formal treatment is seen on the windows of the Manueline vestry, also known as the Capitulum House. Initially there were three but only two remain now: One, to the south, is visible from the Main Cloister where as the remaining one, of the western façade is famously known as the Capitulum Window.
Sided by two gigantic buttresses, or botaréus, this window is ornamented by an exuberant figurative universe, filled with maritime themes - the wood, the ropes, the buoys, etc - the Order insignia - the heraldic cross, the armillary sphere, the kingdom´s coat of arms - and symbolic figures associated to the mystique of the Spiritual Cavalry and to the role the Order of Christ played in the enterprise of the Discoveries.

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