Penalver / Peñalver

Described in Ruiz Montejo (1992): one of several 16th century baptismal fonts found in the Guadalajara province which were carved locally in the Romanesque style of the area and that are sometimes mistaken for the original 12th or 13th century fonts of the area. This one includes the usual ribs and some complementary geometric ornament. The authors describe it as "de buena factura" [=well executed]. Noted and illustrated in the Enciclopedia del románico en Castilla-La Mancha: Guadalajara (2009) as a Romanesque baptismal font originally from the Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de la Zarza, also in Peñalver, but now redundant and turned to a non-religious funtion. The font consists of roughly hemispherical basin decorated with a roll moulding at the upper rim, with a band of twenty-seven nicely rendered intersecting round arch-heads of beaded tape, while the lower side and underbowl are covered in a ribbed pattern with plain round arches at the top, the support of the arches made by the piping that separates the twenty-one ribs; the squat base is round-to-square with multiple mouldings [likely of later date]. The Enciclopedia… notes the similarity of the beaded-tape arcade with the one on the Villarejo de Medina font [cf. Index entry], although the latter lacks the beaded-tape pattern; it also gives as related examples the fonts at Narros, Pobar and Ventosa de la Sierra, in the nearby province of Soria.