old riding school founded by D. José I is a veritable museum of ancient gala coaches. Modern bitumen takes the place of the trampled earth where horse hoofs once plunged heroically; and in the spot where the Marquis of Marialva and other young bloods of D. José and D. Maria's courts performed wonderful equestrian feats, twenty of these coaches oscillate between their braces in regular lines, the sumptuous gilding of their decorations in the penumbra of the old riding school giving them the aspect of small chapels hung in mid air. This impression is intensified by the sight of the coaches of the Calvary, once used in processions to carry pictures or images of saints.
Keen interest in the history of the huge coaches and berlins is excited in examining closer the profusion of allegorical gilded figures, the panels painted by artists of the period, the ogees, the richly carved wheels, the massive poles. "Superstitious cult of the past causes the eye to look up with a certain respect to those high cushions where kings and princes have sat," says Julio Dantas in his article on the Royal Coaches culled from old chroniclists and documents "to all these little boudoir interiors to every one of which is attached a fragment of history. Many of these coaches represent a large folio in our diplomatic history; all without exception constitute valuable documents for the history of our Art."
Philippe II brought the first coaches into Portugal in 1581. The innovation soon became a fashion and then an abuse, fidalgos and merchants alike ruining themselves by the vast sums expended upon coaches and sedan chairs; for one coach represented a fortune. Sumptuary laws forbidding the excess of decoration were in force less than a century later, and João V with his usual magnificence possessed no less than ten coaches and eight berlins, not to speak of his numerous ordinary carriages
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