Cloister of D. Dinis (Cloister of Silence) - entrance of western gate facing the garden

The D. Dinis cloister is the nerve centre of the whole Monastery a place for reading and meditation, the cloister was an obligatory stop on the way to all the other rooms.
This is the only mediaeval cloister in the monastery. Built during the reign of King Dinis, most likely between 1308 and 1311, it was designed by Domingo Domingues and Master Diogo and is one of the most beautiful Portuguese Gothic cloisters.
Later, when Manuel I was king (1495-1521), the Abbot Jorge de Melo had an upper floor added (the Upper Cloister), designed by João de Castilho.
The whole Cloister features vaulted ceilings, with transverse round arches and ogives (transverse ribs). The vaulting coincides with the asymmetry in construction and are particularly irregular on the west side.