Second Floor of the Cloister at Jerónimos Monastery
If there is something that I learned here in my visit to Portugal, it is that Portugal gave birth to an architectural style of its own. The Jerónimos Monastery is a fine example of what was later known as Manueline style. This style was very commonly used in the monasteries which I have visited over the past few days. I think Manueline style is a the result of having almost endless funding for these architectural projects that the architect and sculptors let their imagination run wild. The result is a very ornate and exceptionally beautiful style. A lot of these designs make use of rope, plants and animals as their motifs.
Overlooking the Cloisters of Jerónimos Monastery
Looking at these intricate works makes one wonder how these were done in stone. In modern days, a mold would have been made and replicated multiple times which make the job so much easier. However, everything was all done manually which is very impressive to this day. I wonder how they dealt with mistakes since stone isn’t really very forgiving when it comes to mistakes. I would kid that one mistake would cause the entire church to be redone from scratch. That might be taking it a bit too far but it just goes to show how difficult it was to make this kind of amazing structure.
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