Barcelona No. 6

Delcor (1973) reports two fonts in the Museu d'Art in Montjuich [now MNAC, in Barcelona] which remind one of sarcophagi and are dated to the Visigothic period ["deux autres cuves faisant penser à des sarcophages et qu'on situe à l'époque wisigothique"]. The font believed to be from Sant Pere de Burgal and later from Escaló -now at the MNAC- is obviously one of them [the other is probably the obejct inventoried as MNAC-45 858, a real sarcophagus also dated by the Museum as 12th century]. This Burgal/ Escaló font is described and illustrated in Catalunya romànica (1984- ) as a baptismal font probably of the 12th century rather than earlier; the object is roughly rectangular, with a prismatic shape; like some of the other fonts of this type [e.g.: some of the "oil-fonts" in the Val d'Aran] only two sides are ornamented, one long and one short, adjacent; the long side has a tower-like building on the left, a bishop or abbot with a baculum in the middle, and a church with bellfry on the right; the short side to the right has an unfinished human face. This same source indicates that the object may have been destined for keeping the tithe oils, as was a practice in these Pyrenean churches. [cf. Index entry for Burgal No. 2 for a later font discovered in the ruins of that church]