The Monastery of the Dominicans of Batalha was built to commemorate the victory of the Portuguese over the Castilians at the battle of Aljubarrota in 1385. It was to be the Portuguese monarchy’s main building project for the next two centuries. Here a highly original, national Gothic style evolved, profoundly influenced by Manueline art, as demonstrated by its masterpiece, the Royal Cloister.
As a monument charged with a symbolic value from its foundation, the Monastery of Batalha was, for more than two centuries, the great workshop of the Portuguese monarchy. It is not surprising that the most characteristic features of a national art would have been determined there, during both the Gothic and the Renaissance periods. Batalha is the conservatory of several privileged expressions of Portuguese art: the sober architectural style of the end of the 14th century, with the stupendous nave of the abbatial, of which the two-storey elevation, with broad arcades and high windows, renders most impressive; the exuberant aesthetic of the capelas imperfeitas; the flamboyant arcades embroidered in a lace-work of stone: the Manueline Baroque even more perceptible in the openwork decor of the tracery of the arcades of the royal cloister than on the immense portal attributed to Mateus Fernandes the Elder; and finally, the hybrid style of João de Castilho, architect of the loggia constructed under João III (1521-1557).
