Villefranche-de-Conflent No. 1 / Vilafranca de Conflent

Round tub-like unmounted font believed to be of the 13th century; the material appears to be a calcareous stone but is identified by Corblet (1881-1882) as a red marble. The round plinth is of a different type of stone -it is actually a mill-stone- and has a cross incised on one of the sides. Delcor (1973) identifies an alpha-and-omega, a head [or two?] and a circled cross on it and gives some measurements as well; he also mentions that this font is originally from Belloch (ibid.). The Dictionnaire des églises... (1966- ) entry by Durliat mentions that "la cuve était curieusement ouvragé". Described and illustrated in Catalunya romànica (1984- , vol. VII: 540-541) where it is dated to the 12th century. Listed in Palissy [ref.: PM66000941]: "Vasque servant de fonts baptismaux [...] Provenant de l'ancien prieuré Notre-Dame de Belloch et ultérieurement abbaye Saint-Michel-de-Cuxa [...] 12e siècle". On-site notes: the large tub-shaped font is rather typical of the area and, one hastens to add, so are the cryptic motifs which ornament the band around the basin sides [cf. also the fonts at Ur and Beuda for other such challenging iconography]: there is a broad rounded rim underlined by an incised line parallel to the top; below it a band of ornamentation made up of several motifs [L->R]: an anchor-like motif, a human face, a cross inscribed in a window-like frame, a horizontal motif looking like s cane or baculum, a grotesque or animal head, an anagram of builder's mark (perhaps an alpha-omega anagram?), a cross inscribed in a circle, a bird? or other animal? inscribed in a window or building, a blind round arch, a spoon or palette/spatula; the rest of the basin side is totally plain. L' abbé Cazes [cf. below] gives its origin as the nearby church of St-André de Bell-Lloc and describes it as "en très beau marbre et curieusement ouvragée" (Cazes, [s.d.],: 11); he gives a suggested reading, "sous toute réserve" as follows: "framed by a sideways Alpha-and-Omega are four motifs that we [i.e., Monsieur l'abbé] interpret thus: starting with the Alpha -which entails commencement- the head of a child still wearing the laces of new-born clothing, therefore evoquing birth; next is the spoon or ladle [Fr. "louche"] symbolising baptism, of which it used to be the traditional implemnent [l'abbé Cazes has an article on this implement, "La louche baptismale", published in the Revue de Conflent (no. 2000, p. 31-32)]; after that comes the Eucharist, symbolised here by the motif showing a cross inside a circle and, finally, the head of old-age eyeing the Omega of death, the latter shaped here like a cross-bow. [our translation of Cazes ([s.d.]: 36)]. It was not a given to us that all the motifs be from the same period and by the same hand; there is a marked difference between some of the shallow incisions and the high-relief carvings; nor are we convinced that the two faces represent the new-born vs. the ageing (if anything, the unadorned face appears younger to us that the one with the cat-like hairdo). Like the iconography at the Ur font, it is an atypical representation and not one to easily give away its meaning, whatever this may be. The cross-in-an-arch is a definite religious motif of easy recognition, as possibly the other inscribed cross, unless it is heraldic, not a likely motif of this period; the "sideways alpha and omega" may or may not be so, perhaps a builder's mark; the "louche" is as good a guess as anyone else could put forward; and so on. There is one other baptismal font in this church: a 18th-century red-marble resembling a tub-font of the Romanesque period [not listed in the Index - image available in Images area].