Almarcha, La

Results: 2 records

BBU01: design element - patterns - geometric

Scene Description: for various interpretations cf. Font notes

BU01: design element - architectural - arcade - blind - round arches

INFORMATION

FontID: 02411ALM
Church/Chapel: Iglesia Parroquial de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción [orig. from Conventillo?]
Church Patron Saints: The Assumption of St. Mary
Church Location: 16740 La Almarcha, Cuenca, Spain
Country Name: Spain
Location: Cuenca, Castilla-La Mancha
Directions to Site: Located SW of the Embalse de Alarcon, south of the A-3/N-3, to the SW of the town of Cuenca
Font Location in Church: Inside the church, in an alcove at the W end, N side of the nave
Century and Period: 13th century, Romanesque
Cognate Fonts: The font at Valdemeca, nearby, is quite similar but the ornamental arcade of the underbowl is thicker, done in higher relief and the arches look Mozarabic. Also Villaescusa de Haro, in Cuenca as well.
Described and illustrated in Nieto Taberné (1994) and (2001) as a Romanesque baptismal font; the upper register of the basin sides is ornamented with a band of cleverly designed motif which can be read as six-petal floers, six-point stars, geometric romboid motifs or even multi-armed pattee crosses; the underbowl is ornamented eith a blind arcade of round arches resting on slender columns which gather at the bottom. The base is a stumpy square pedestal. The Enciclopedia del románico en Castilla-La Mancha: Cuenca (2009) notes and illustrates a baptismal font probably of the 13th century, and perhaps from the nearby location of Coventillo, as the church itself is actually a building of the 16th-17th century; the font consists of a hemispherical basin decorated with a roll moulding at the upper rim, and a band of circles inscribing odd-looking six-arm potent crosses, all the arms with a sigle round perforation in it; the lower sides and underbowl are decorated with a shallow arcade of round arches on columns with well-defined capitels; every other arch is coloured in red/ochre paint; the basin is raised on a plain squat round-to-square base. The Enciclopedia… (ibid.) gives the font at Villaescusa de Haro, also in Cuenca, as similar in its decoration [NB: oddly enough the Enciclopedia does not have an entry for the latter location]

MEDIUM AND MEASUREMENTS

Material: stone, type unknown
Number of Pieces: two
Font Shape: hemispheric (mounted)
Basin Interior Shape: round
Basin Exterior Shape: round
Rim Thickness: 16 cm
Diameter (inside rim): 82 cm
Diameter (includes rim): 115 cm
Basin Depth: 39 cm [the Enciclopedia gives 44 cm]
Basin Total Height: 60 cm
Height of Base: 26 cm
Font Height (less Plinth): 86 cm [the Enciclopedia gives 95 cm]
Notes on Measurements: Nieto Taberné (1994: 450)

REFERENCES

Fundación Santa María la Real, Enciclopedia del románico en Castilla-La Mancha: Cuenca, Aguilar de Campoo: Fundación Santa María la Real, Centro de Estudios del Románico, 2009
Nieto Taberné, Tomás, El Románico en Cuenca, Cuenca: Estudio Museo, 1994
Nieto Taberné, Tomás, El Románico en Cuenca, León: Ediciones Lancia, 2001