Mosteiro de São Pedro de Ferreira

The plan of the Monastery is composed of a single nave, with vaulted headboard, organized in two sections, the first being larger and taller. This is a very particular feature of the Alto Minho Romanesque. The nave, whose height of its body is impregnated with proto-plastic space, is covered with wood and the headboard, internally, is polygonal, while outside it is semicircular. Its unusual height caused the placement of buttresses on the outside and columns attached on the inside. The main chapel, relatively high, is composed of two levels, a first one of blind arcades, two of them in miter, and a second with raised in arcades that alternate with cracks. Unusual in the Portuguese Romanesque style is the existence of a toral arch at the headboard supported by protruding pilasters adorned by escócias. The portal of the main facade is inserted in pentagonal body, whereas the wide and very well designed western portal reveals four columns on each side, two of them prismatic. The decoration is executed by means of a turned cut in the extrusion of the arcades, accentuated by a wide hole. These decorative solutions resemble patterns found in San Martín de Salamanca or in Seville, Spain. The capitals of the lateral portals are of great quality, some presenting barnacles and animals, others in vegetal decoration. The lateral facades were topped by a cornice formed by small arches set in corbels. In front of the main portal are the remains of an antebellum or funerary galilee, whose tombs are two funerary remains: a trapezoidal sarcophagus and a grave cover with a statue of João Vasques da Granja.