Tlaxcala No. 3

Noted and illustrated in the Album gráfico de la República Mexicana (1910). In Sotomayor (1963). Romero Quiroz (1967) describes the font at Tlaxcala as "la pila de los caciques" [chieftains' font], carved in the 16th century under the Franciscans. Noted by Lucila Mata in Islas (2002) as the first baptismal font of the American Continent, where the four 'caciques' of Tlaxcala were baptised [www.conaculta.gob.mx/saladeprensa/2002/16may/convento.htm] [accessed 21 May 2006]. Listed as the original baptismal font of the old Franciscan convent, dating to the mid-16th century and one of the first in continental America; it is the font in which the four main lords/senators of Tlaxcala were baptised. [source: www.inah.gob.mx] [accessed 21 May 2006]. The web site www.adopteunaobradearte.com [accessed 21 May 2006] illustrates the font and gives the names of the four Tlaxcalan chieftains baptised therein: Xicohtencatl [bapt'd as Vicente], Maxixcatzin [bapt'd as Lorenzo], Tlahuexolotzin [bapt'd as Gonzalo] and Zintlalpopocatl [bapt'd as Bartolome] [NB: this same source informs that there are several paintings of different dates within the colonial period in Mexico which depict the baptism scene usually including the four chieftains, Hernan Cortes, Malinche and the officiating cleric Juan Diaz, chaplain of the conquistador army -- the inscription by the font adds the names of Pedro de Alvarado, Andres de Tapia, Gonzalo de Sandoval and Cristobal de Olid, the last four officers of Cortes']. The font itself consists of a plain cylindrical basin raised on a plain pedestal stem, the only decorative element being a thin moulding at either end of the stem.