Roma No. 2 / Vaticano

The oval basin and base are made of plum-coloured porphyry, which was formerly the sarcophagus that once contained the remains of emperor Otto II, buried in 983. The long basin is plain except for tore-and-scotia mouldings at the rim; the base, also made of the same stone, is plain except for a gilded bronze winged angel head and leaf motif at each side. These match the high-baroque ornamentation of the lid, a convoluted cover decorated with golden vegetal curls, chubby angels which hold a round salve-like plate in which the God Father and Christ sit at opposite ends, the whole akin back to the angels-held-mandorla of medieval iconography; atop a cake-like base lies the Agnus Dei holding up the bannered cross. Lees-Milne (1967) reckons that the lower part of the lid may "have served the same purpose for the remains of Emperor Hadrian", taken by the architect [Fontana] from the crypt of the new basilica where it had been stored; on removal, "it was dropped and broken into ten pieces, but was so skilfully repaired that the fractures are scarcely visible. The baroque "toppings" were all Fontana's design.