Tongres / Tongeren

Noted and illustrated in Jansen's catalogue (1964): it shows a square mounted font with a round pedestal upper base adorned with a single scotia in the middle and a square lower base of the type Cloquet described it as showing the remnants of the earlier colonnettes in the four corner ornaments of the base. The sides of the Tournai-like basin are adorned with a running blind arcade (6 arches per side). The underbasin is round, as is the basin well. Jansen describes the decoration of the four corner spandrels of the upper basin surface as: 1)two doves pecking at each other, a bunch of grapes and two little heads; 2)head with two palms in its mouth; 3)fabulous animal and 4)idem. The catalogue reports the font as having been acquired in Tongres in 1906 (Musees Royaux d'Art et d'Histoire, Brussels, 1964). Catalogued and illustrated in Ghislain (2009) as a baptismal font of the Namurois group, filiation Beauvechain, made of limestone (calcaire de Meuse) ca. 1150-1155, a font on unknown provenance acquired for the M.R.A.H. by Dr. Mercken in 1906 [cf. supra]; Ghislain gives details and illustrates the four occupants of the upper basin surface spandrels [L->R starting with]: 1)the facing doves are pecking at a bunch of grapes or arum, and the two human heads with very long pointed beards fill the space at the end of the doves' tails; 4)the head, though humanoid, is simian, has wings on the sides and has vegetation stemming out of its mouth, curiously exiting only to the right leaving a blank space on the left, which is rather uncharacteristic; 2)fabulous animal, "fauve griffu", showing its powerful teeth is being bitten in the neck by a similar-looking but tiny beast; it has a belt-like band of beaded-tape across the body; 3)caprid-looking beast in a rampant stamnce; all beautifully carved; around the opening of the inner basin is a wide flat moulding; the spandrels 1 and 3, at opposite ends, have had holes drilled in them, probably for the anchorage of an old font cover; the sides of the basin have a blind arcade of round arches resting in columns with capitals and bases; the base is as described above. Ghislain (ibid.) remarks on the similarity of details with the fonts at Cousolre, Flône and Heel, and the bell-shaped palmettes of the Tournai fonts. [NB: Van de Casteele (1877) writes of the only known baptistery building in Belgium, a round chapel erected near the cathedral of Notre-Dame at Tongres, and demolished in 1806 without anyone bothering to even make a sketch of it. A communication to BSI from Pol Herman conveys comments about claims that there may have existed an Early Christian baptistery; the comments are from Dr. Alain Vanderhoeven, specialist in Roman and Early Christian archaeology: "No baptistery is known in Tongeren before the Middle Ages. For the late Roman period there is debate. To the west of a mid-4th century basilica, possibly the episcopal church of the Tungri, stood a small building consisting of a single room, with underfloor heating to the north, and a bath to the south. To the north of this, the remains of a square water basin had been found [...] Some would like to see a baptistery in this combination. Incidentally, the plan of the Tongeren basilica shows that eight impressions of small columns were preserved in the apse, placed in the shape of an octagon. What was installed on it, octagonal or circular, is unknown to us. The diameter of the ring is about 1.35 m. The monument stood about a meter in front of the central seat of the bank, priest's pew (?) in the apse. An altar in that place is unlikely. Altars were more to the west in the apse, I am told. Circular altars are known, but they rest on four legs. So far, the trail is a mystery."