Brive-la-Gaillarde No. 1 / Briva Curretia / Brives-la-Gaillarde

Listed by Enlart (1902) as a circular footless font of the 12th century; he describes the ornamentation on this font as having spiral flutings or striations ("strigiles ou cannelures") imitating those on ancient sarcophagi. Listed in Palissy [ref.: PM19000071]: "Cuve baptismale [en grès] du 12e siècle ; complétée dans la 2e moitié du 19e siècle par un couvercle surmonté d'une armoire aux huiles saintes en cuivre et bronze [...] Les deux ceintures de la cuve sont ornées de moulures ; entre les ceintures un large bandeau est sculpté de cannelures torses ; sur le bandeau sont sculptés les trois symboles des Evangélistes." The Dictionnaire des églises... (1966) describes it as very large Romanesque basin ornamented with fluting or ribbed pattern and the symbols of three Evangelists: Matthew, John and Mark. Baptismal font of the 12th century reported in Eglises de Corrèze [http://eglises.de.correze.online.fr/] [accessed 8 February 2017]. The large basin is decorated with an irregular thick moulding at the upper end (it is mostly rounded but the front is practically flat), followed down by a thin rope moulding all around; below is a wide band of diagonal ribbed pattern or fluting also quite irregular (in some areas the fluting is almost vertical, while in others is almost at 45 degrees) on which appear three (?) Evangelists symbols; next down is a narrow band of small scallop pattern; then comes a double torus-scotia-torus combination, the mouldings badly damaged in some areas; the basin rests directly on the ground. The metal font cover has a cylindrical 'tourelle' with a conical roof (the body itself decorated with trefoil windows, the roof 'en poivrière' with a scalloped pattern and a figural finial holding a cross, probably Christ or John the Baptist; the whole stands on a flat surface -the cover proper- which has hinged segments that open to provide access to the basin interior.