Batalha Monastery - Cloister of King John I (Claustro Real)

Cloister of King John I (Claustro Real)

This cloister was not part of the original project. It was built under the architect Fernão de Évora between 1448 and 1477. Its sober outward appearance is in stark contrast with the Flamboyant Gothic style of the church. The carved tracery decoration in Gothic style (including quatrefoils, fleurs-de-lis and rosettes) by Huguet in the ambulatory forms a successful combination with the Manueline style in the arcade screens, added later by Mateus Fernandes. Two different patterns alternate, one with the cross of the Order of Christ, the other with armillaries.

The colonnettes, supporting these intricate arcade screens, are decorated with spiral motives, armillaries, lotus blossoms, briar branches, pearls and shells and exotic vegetation.

Read more about this topic:  Batalha Monastery

Famous quotes containing the words cloister, king and/or john:

    “The cloister and the observatory saint
    Take comfort in about the same complaint.
    So science and religion really meet.”
    —Robert Frost (1874–1963)

    “I see that Time’s the king of men;
    He’s both their parent, and he is their grave,
    And gives them what he will, not what they crave.”
    —William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

    “Quintilian [educational writer in Rome about A.D. 100] hoped that teachers would be sensitive to individual differences of temperament and ability. . . . Beating, he thought, was usually unnecessary. A teacher who had made the effort to understand his pupil’s individual needs and character could probably dispense with it: “I will content myself with saying that children are helpless and easily victimized, and that therefore no one should be given unlimited power over them.””
    —C. John Sommerville (20th century)