Lillo / San Miguel de Lillo

INFORMATION

Font ID: 05032LIL
Object Type: Baptismal Font1
Font Century and Period/Style: 9th - 11th century, Pre-Romanesque
Cognate Fonts: Same type as the font from the church of San Pedro in Villanueva; others of the same type nearby: Gramedo/Grameu en Cabranes, Puelles and Priesca, as well as the font at Santa Maria de Morcin
Museum: Photograph from the Archivo MAS, negative no. C 25 435
Church / Chapel Name: Iglesia de San Miguel
Font Location in Church: [disappeared?]
Church Notes: 9thC church
Church Address: Lugar Lillo, 33194 Oviedo, Asturias, Spain -- Tel.: +34 985 11 49 01
Site Location: Asturias, Principado de Asturias, Spain, Europe
Directions to Site: Located near Villaviciosa, 35-40 km ENE of Oviedo capital (San Miguel de Lillo and Santa Maria de Naranco are located within 200 yards of each other)
Historical Region: Oviedo
Additional Comments: disappeared / lost font: [cf. Font notes]
Font Notes:
Described in Alvarez Martínez (1999: 265) as one in a group of barrel-shaped fonts dated to the 9th-11th century of the same design type as the later font originally from the church of San Pedro in Villanueva now kept at the Museo Arqueológico Nacional in Madrid. Described and illustrated in García de Castro (1995: 241-242) as a cylindrical font probably of the early church and therefore dated to the 9th century. This author is reluctant to identify the fragment now [ca. 1995] at Lillo with the original font and provides the supporting documentation to his thesis that the fragment currently at Lillo is actually what is left of the baptismal font from nearby Santa Maria de Naranco. One of these documents is a ca. 1908 photograph in the Archivo MAS [negative C 25 435] in which the image matches a later photograph in Selgas Albuerne's "Arte pre-románico asturiano" (Madrid: Polígrafa, 1967); both photographs show the same font, the latter clearly identifying a fragment located outside the church, right of the western entrance (pl. 62 on p,. 157). The fragment identified in these two images is not, according to GdeC the fragment found now at San Miguel de Lillo, which lacks the flat moulding clearly visible in the original Lillo font. [cf. Index entry for Naranco for information on the surviving fragment]

COORDINATES

UTM: 30T 267640 4807034
Latitude & Longitude (Decimal): 43.380203, -5.868433
Latitude & Longitude (DMS): 43° 22′ 48.73″ N, 5° 52′ 6.36″ W

MEDIUM AND MEASUREMENTS

Material: stone
Number of Pieces: one?
Font Shape: cylindrical?
Basin Interior Shape: round
Basin Exterior Shape: round

REFERENCES

  • Alvarez Martínez, María Soledad, El románico en Asturias, Gijón: Ediciones Trea, 1999, p. 265
  • Fontaine, Jacques, Art pré-roman hispanique, La Pierre-qui-vire, Yonne: Zodiaque, 1973-1977, t. 1: pl. 115
  • García de Castro Valdés, César, Arqueología cristiana de la alta Edad Media en Asturias, Oviedo: Real Instituto de Estudios Asturianos, 1995, p. 241-242 and fn 344, 345
  • Múñiz López, Iván, "La pila bautismal de tradición prerrománica de Castrillón (Asturias): el control señorial del bautismo", 2 (2007), Territorio, sociedad y poder, 2007, pp. 265-274; p. 273