IN CASTELO BRANCO all roads lead to the garden of the Bishop’s Palace. There’s no risk therefore in the traveller dawdling or getting lost, in going first for example up to the castle, which is a bare ruin. It’s here he encounters his first disappointment: the church of Santa María is closed and fenced off, so there is no way he can visit the tomb of the poet João Ruiz de Castelo Branco, whose statue stands down below in the Largo do Municipio. The traveller, who is prone to these sentimental weaknesses, had been hoping to recite at the tombstone those marvellous verses which since the sixteenth century have been resounding, oblivious to time, with the pain of lovers parting:
My lady, these eyes depart
With so much sadness from thee
That there’s never been, dear heart
Anyone so sad as me . . .
but the traveller was prevented from fulfilling his sentimental pilgrimage by a strong fence all round the church. Apparently, some archaeological remains were found here, and while it is being decided whether or not to excavate, all visitors are being kept out. This fence isn’t as penetrable as the one in Idanha-a-Velha, and even if it were, there doesn’t seem to be any way into the church.
The traveller walks through the old town down the Rua dos Peleiteros, and to make up for his disappointment murmurs to himself:
So weary and so tearful
So sorrowful from parting
A thousand times more fearful
Of living than of dying.
Some literary reputations are based on a very small amount of work, and this is the case of João Ruiz (or Rodrigues) de Castelo Branco, who even though he was responsible for little more than these few verses, will be remembered as long as the Portuguese language survives. A man comes into this world, takes a couple of turns, and departs it, but that is all that’s needed to create and give form to this expression of individual sensibility which then becomes part of our collective experience.
It was in this reflective frame of mind that the traveller found himself confronted by the Cathedral, which does not know what to do with the inexpressive façade that was foisted upon it. And inside it is obvious that those charged with the mission of beautifying this temple to St Michael did not put themselves out very much; we can only hope that in his magnanimity the archangel will forgive them their oversight. A lot more forgiveness will be needed, for Bishop Dom Vicente’s pride for example, after the way he has had his coat of arms sculpted over the sacristy door: put briefly, this is nothing more than a delirium of stone. Christ’s only emblem was a rugged cross, but his bishops are going to enter heaven carting with them heraldic puzzles it will take an eternity to solve.
This part of the town is so provincial, or at any rate so much at one with its province, if that first word seems in any way pejorative, that the traveller finds it hard to believe that close by these streets and quiet avenues are signs of the feverish, agitated world of today, as the saying goes. This impression stays with him throughout his visit.
Shortly afterwards he’s nearing the palace garden. Here is the crucifix of St John, with stone like lacework, hollowed out in filigree, with not a smooth surface to be seen anywhere. It’s a triumph of curves, scrolls, flourishes. But this crucifix seems lost in a large corner square; it seems out-of-place with all that’s around it, as though it had been transplanted here without much thought. And yet as far as the traveller can tell, it’s always been here. It’s just that at some moment or other, the crucifix became detached from the rest of the square; it was spurned or did the spurning.
The traveller passes by the garden, but does not intend to go in yet. He goes first of all to the museum, where he wants to see the good archaeological display, the reconstruction of cave paintings from the valley of the Tagus including the Herculean figure of a hunter carrying a deer on his shoulders, and the much more recent delicate Roman statuette. The traveller is moved by the representation of the goddess Trebaruna, to whom Leite de Vasconcelos dedicated such dreadful verses and such sincere love; and notes the famous case of the ancient pair of Siamese twins, realistically illustrated on a tombstone that unfortunately is damaged. The museum at Castelo Branco is not of the first rank, but gives a lot of pleasure. The San António attributed to Francisco Henriques is magnificent: the saint’s face is that of a simple man, and he holds the book the holy child is reading, not daring to touch him. His face, with its rough stubble of beard, is contemplative, the eyelids half-closed; and it is plain that this rustic friar is not the splendid orator who converted the fishes, and that his simplicity is not affected in the slightest by the sumptuous background of the panel, with its porphyry column and flowery tapestry. In this sixteenth-century painting the traveller also notes the Angel of the Annunciation coming in through a window made to measure for him, more of a humming bird than a messenger, and this raises two divergent thoughts in his mind. First, that it would be interesting to study the mosaics depicted not only in these sixteenth-century paintings but in the periods before and after the golden age of our arts. He thinks this would provide valuable information about the chronology, similarity of motives and reciprocal influences between the painters’ and mosaic-makers’ studios. He is sure that not all the information to be gleaned from these mosaics has been exhausted by Almada Negreiros’ discoveries about their disposition in the panels at San Vicente de Fora. His second thought might not please those who are sticklers for religious orthodoxy. It concerns how frequently these Annunciations show the Virgin’s bedroom, either beneath a low arch, as in this case, or behind heavy, drawn-back curtains. It’s true that by this time Mary was already married to Joseph, but since this descendant from the Holy Spirit is supposed to be immaterial, the bed is usually deemed unnecessary, unless the painter insists on reminding us that normally this is where the sons of men are conceived. Satisfied with these two original thoughts, the traveller moved on to the ethnographical section, where he admired the antiquity of the electoral urns, the absurd machine that selected numbers for military service, and the earliest examples of looms for weaving. Nearby there are some wonderful examples of the region’s quilts, while from behind a curtain he can hear the voices of apprentices learning to sew them; afterwards he was sorry he did not say hello to them. In another room there are banners of the Misericordia, but they have been repainted so often it is difficult to tell what they were like originally.
The traveller entered the museum on the ground floor, but leaves by the staircase from the first floor, in the way most befitting an archbishop. Now it is time to visit the garden. Whereas Monsanto was the town of stone, here is a gallery of illustrious figures: angelical, apostolic, real, symbolic – but all of them intimately portrayed, close at hand, in the gaps between the shaped box trees. The traveller thinks there cannot be another garden like this in the whole world. If there is, then this is a remarkable copy; if not, then it’s worth a lot of praise. The only drawback he can find is that it is not somewhere to rest or to read a book – anyone entering it should bear that in mind. When the bishops came in here, they doubtless brought their servants with them, and they in turn brought stools for their masters to rest and pray on, but nowadays the common traveller who visits the garden can look round it as much as he or she likes, but will have only the ground or the steps of the staircases to sit on. The statues are remarkable, not so much for their artistic value, which is debatable, but for the ingenuity they show, the display of a learned plastic vocabulary. Here are the kings of Portugal, like those of a pack of cards, and here too is the patriotic gesture that meant the kings of Spain were portrayed alongside them on a smaller scale – since they could not be ignored entirely, they were shrunk. Alongside them are the symbolic statues: Faith, Hope and Charity; Spring and the other seasons; and here in a corner facing the wall, Death. The visitors don’t like this particular statue, of course. They stick chewing gum in its empty eye sockets, put cigarettes between its lips. These insults probably mean little to Death. It knows that there is a time for everything.
The traveller finished his tour, counting all the apostles, looking at the pond shining like an altarcloth in the muddy garden. Back in the town square, he is disappointed to find that the statue to João Ruiz has nothing in common with his verses: he is simply a stuffed shirt dressed like country nobles of his day, not someone who was capable of writing:
The sad are so sad to leave
So hopeless in their goodbyes
That no-one could ever believe
The sadness in their eyes.
The traveller also takes his leave. He is neither sad nor particularly happy, merely worried about the rainclouds gathering in the north. His journey is going to be a wet one. It is at this point that the stern hand of history grasps his shoulder, and wakes him from the kind of stupor he has been in since arriving in Castelo Branco. “The person whose bones are buried in the church of Santa María,” this voice tells him, “the person whose statue stands in the square, is not the poet, my dear friend, but Amaro Lusitano, a doctor, who shared the same name as the poet but never wrote a line of verse in his life.” Annoyed, the traveller pulls up, seizes this irritating voice by the arm, and throws him out of the car. Then he continues on his way, murmuring the immortal words of João Ruiz de Castelo Branco, the bones and statue of poetry.
And in a further effort to be truthful, it has to be said that the traveller seems always to choose the worst roads. Now he rejects the main road on his right that would lead him straight to Abrantes, and chooses instead to head for the heights of the Moradal and the Serra Vermelha, where all the clouds and storms of this fickle spring have apparently congregated. Until he reaches Foz Giraldo, the rain is only a threat. But from there to Oleiros, it is pouring down, and at the summit of the Serra do Moradal he could swear it is streaming straight out of the clouds, because it has none of that delayed effect it usually has. The road is a solitary one: tens of kilometres without a soul, just mountain on mountain: how can such a small country be so big?
In Oleiros, the traveller enjoyed the images to be found in the parish church, even those which have been sadly repainted, like the stone statue of the Virgin carrying a bunch of flowers in her hand, which has been covered in gold paint. The same has been done to the carvings. But the church is well worth the visit, to see not only the things that have escaped this repainting mania, but also the decorated ceiling and the tiles in the mortuary chapel.
Oleiros is between two mountain ranges: Alvelos, to the southeast, and Vermelha, to the northwest. Between them flows the River Sertã, which here is a rushing torrent. The traveller has a goal in mind: he wants to reach Álvaro, which can only be done from this side, after first climbing the Vermelha range. In comparison with other ranges, it’s not very high or very extensive. But it has its own special grandeur, due perhaps to its ruggedness, its almost disturbing solitude, its dramatic ravines and slopes covered in heather, from whose colour it perhaps gets its name. The low clouds help underline this sense of an untouched world, in which all the elements have still to be separated out, and where man can only enter with slow and deliberate steps in order not to disturb these first moments of creation.
The traveller did not get far on his descent towards Álvaro. Roadworks had made the surface more like a sea of mud than a road for cars. The rain seemed to have eased off a bit, or at least that was what the traveller was trying to tell himself. But the driver of one of the diggers, snug in his cabin, told him: “If you carry on, you’ll have problems.” If the traveller had had a dove with him, he could have sent a message on ahead to Álvaro, but this not being the case, he had no other choice than to turn back and head along the crest of the mountain range. Once again, heather everywhere, deep, dark ravines, the only thing missing were highwaymen.
The rain had stopped by the time he reached the Sertã valley. The roads down here are narrow and rough like ant trails. While it may well be that in terms of the world, the traveller is no larger than an ant, he would still have preferred a little more space, a little less loose stone, fewer potholes; anyone travelling this route is hardly going to believe that apshalt and concrete have been invented. And since misfortune never comes alone, the traveller made a mistake and passed by Sardoal, without coming across anything to compensate for the error. However, he pushed on and finally reached Abrantes after nightfall.
Abrantes is the gateway to the South. From his hotel window, the traveller can see the River Tagus and, as he recognises its broad sweep, he is afraid he will not be able to convey how much he loves it and the lands it flows through. But that is a task for later. Now he has to head for the coast, and visit places he has left behind until now. And so he sits contented with the almost cloudless evening, and stares out thoughtfully at the plains of Southern Portugal.
Of Abrantes it is said: “Everything is as it ever was, headquarters in Abrantes”. The traveller is no connoisseur of military headquarters, but if everything in Abrantes were really like it had always been, then artistically speaking it would be a very different matter. Buildings have been torn down on all sides, and what has replaced them is in no way an improvement. The same happens all over Portugal, but it’s more noticeable here in Abrantes because it was such a historical crossroads, and now little remains to tell the story. And there are still things unfinished, like the missing tower on St Vincent’s church, or the two towers of St John the Baptist’s, which must be for reasons of financial exhaustion. The traveller could not enter St Vincent’s, but he walked round it carefully, enjoying the simple flying buttresses on its lateral walls and smiling at the tiny belltower that takes the place of the missing one. Since there was no more to see there, he went on to St John the Baptist’s. This church is in one corner of an elevated square that rather overwhelms it, but does give it an intimate air. The traveller did not particularly like the Philippine architecture – so called because it was under Philip II that the church was reconstructed – because it seemed to him that the Ionic columns were out of place, a late Renaissance idea that was unconvincing. He also found the three pulpits incongruous, as it was hard to imagine why so many were needed when a single sermon preached here would be more than enough to fill the entire church. Anyway, these are mysteries of the church that the traveller did not care to delve into.
If this were all there was to Abrantes, nothing would be lost by not entering it, except out of politeness or from a need to rest. But Abrantes can also boast, in the Misericordia church, the admirable panels painted by – or attributed to – Gregório Lopes, full of the refined figures typical of all his work, even the most religious. The models – or the way of looking – of the Master of Abrantes were very different, to judge by the panel thought to be by him in the Santa María do Castelo church. The Virgin Mary in this Adoration of the Magi is clearly a countrywoman who is presenting her son – a future shepherd – to other country people who are thinly disguised beneath their regal robes.
And this is what more than justifies a visit to Abrantes: the church of Santa María do Castelo, and the Dom Lopo de Almeida Museum set up here fifty years ago. The church nave is not vast, nor is the mseum, but it has a superb collection. On his journey, the traveller always tries to find someone he can talk to, ask questions of, but does not always receive his just desserts. This is not the case in Abrantes: here, the museum attendant loves what he is watching over, it’s his pride and joy, he talks of each object as if it were a close relative of his. Soon there is no telling who is the guide and who is the visitor, they are simply two friends, and both of them admire the splendid sculpture of the Holy Trinity, the work of one M.P., who was an imaginative genius, the Roman statues, and the illuminated manuscripts kept in the sacristy. The attendant shows him, with touching delicacy, the letter N from a tiny missal, and his finger points out the flourishes, the scrolls, the brightness of the colours, as if he were pointing out his own heart.
The two of them carry on conversing as they walk along a passageway leading up to the choir, but suddenly the traveller stops and cannot go any further until he has properly admired and fully savoured the wonderful wooden plaque, with a simple floral surround, that shows in its undecorated centre the three unnecessary but moving words: “Hic est chorus”– here is the choir. These steps could not be leading anywhere else, there’s no danger that the bodies or souls climbing them might get lost, and yet someone felt the need to point out this precise spot. The attendant smiles and nods, perhaps it had not occurred to him before, and from now on he will point it out, as he does with the letter N in the missal. These are more letters, after all. When the traveller reaches the choir, he understands everything. On the far wall is a frieze from another church’s altarpiece. It shows two angels carved in dark wood, raising their body, arm and doubtless their voice in jubilation: that explains “hic est chorus”, spreading throughout the church. These angels have made their own journey, they are exultant. Jubilation. “These are truly jubilant angels,” the traveller hears someone murmur beside him.
The attendant accompanies him back to the entrance, and from the doorway points out the stone from where, according to tradition, Nuno Álvares Pereira climbed onto his mule and set out for Aljubarrota. The traveller is headed in the same direction, and it’s high time he got started.