San Demetrio Corone No. 2

Described and illustrated in Garzya Romano (1988: 292-293 and pl. 97) as an octagonal basin from the Norman period; each of the eight sides has a long-haired and bearded face in low-relief, which Garzya Romano suggests might represent monks of the Italo-Greek community at the monastery here; each bottom corner of the basin has the head, front legs and wings of a feline monster, the wings shooting up the sides of the basin and framing the bearded heads mentioned above. The whole iconography has -as has been pointed out by Venditti (in Garzya Romano, 1998:292-293)- a definite Byzantian origin, but with a new vigour of expression added by the western flavour. The cover -not illustrated in this source- is described in the same source as reflecting the same theme of the monstruous feline heads but on a low-relief, and having a finial of a sculptural group consisting of a bearded man riding on two lions and taking something unidentified with both hands to his mouth. The presence of three drain holes, at the bottom edge, through three of the animal heads, makes the source (Ibid., p. 293) suggest that this peculiar object may have been either a baptismal font or a cloister fountain.