Cestafe No. 1 / Zestafe

Reported in López de Guereñu (1962) and in Bilbao (1994) as a medieval baptismal font. The entry for Zestafe in the Enciclopedia Auñamendi [www.euskomedia.org/aunamendi/140990/13122?q=ZESTAFE&numreg=3&start=0] [accessed 5 April 2012] notes that the Iglesia de San Nicolás of Zestafe is documented in the year 871, and that the Ermita de San Pedro was originally the parish church of the disappeared hamlet of Gorostiza [="La iglesia de Zestafe aparece mencionada en documento del año 871 por el que es cedida al monasterio de San Vicente de Ocoizta (Acosta, Zigoitia). Posteriormente pasó a ser pertenencia del monasterio riojano de San Millán (Códice de San Millán, n.° 12)."]. This same source describes the baptismal font here as medieval, consisting of a plain hemispherical basin raised on a plain cylindrical pedestal base and a lower base decorated with claws [actually spurs, at the angles of the roun-to-square lower base]; it dates the fabric of the Iglesia de San Nicolás to the 13th century [="Fábrica del siglo XIII [...] Portada románica del siglo XIII [...] Pila bautismal medieval. Taza sin decorar, pie de columna y base cuadrada con garras en los ángulos." [NB: it is not clear whether or not this font belonged originally to the Gorostiza church; the date of the font could well match the fabric of the Cestafe church]. The upper rim of the basin has two metal staples at oposite ends, evidence of a font cover. This rural chapel, formerly parish church, appears listed without details as a Romanesque church in Agustín Gómez Gómez' Rutas del romanico, Pais Vasco (1998: 24).