Madrid No. 2

This font was discovered by Francisco Olivares Barragán in a place known as 'Fuente de la Peñuela', in the Cañada de Ubeda, municipality of Santisteban del Puerto. Olivares Barragán (1973) describes it as Hispano-Visigothic baptismal font [="pila bautismal hispano-visigótica"]. Described and illustrated by Vázquez de Parga (1957) as a Visigothic object ["pila"] made of marble and dated between the 6th and the eighth century; the "Visigothic" attribution corresponds to the type found in Toledo between these centuries. V. de P. (ibid.) describes the object as a crude work, prismatic in shape, wider at the top than at the bottom; the sides are ornamented with a chrismon [chi rho] inscribed in concentric circles at the centre; to either side of this are two heart-shaped motifs, also inscribed in concentric circles; to the outer sides of these, vertical incised lines. The interior of the rectangular well is described and illustrated as having a middle ridge along its centre; the outer ends of the ridge or seat are floral-like knobs; next to the lnobs, two opposed fish, each facing the know on its own side of the ridge. [NB: fish on the inside of baptismal vessels -if this is what the function of this liturgical object is- are rather rare in general, although the source -V. de P.- acknowledges other such -- cf. Index entries for other baptismal objects with fish depicted on the inside of the well at: Courseult and Dinan (Côtes-d'Armor), Carbonne and St-Aventin (Haute-Garonne), in France, as well as the one in Italy at Acerenza (Basilicata)]. This object is listed without known origin among the acquisitions made by the Museo Arqueológico Nacional (Madrid, Spain) in 1957, and of uncertain function, although V. de P. (ibid.) suggests possibly liturgic [= "posiblemente litúrgica"]. Palol (1967) states that this font is from the Visigothic period and dates probably from the 7th century [="de época claramente visigoda y probablemente del siglo VII"]. Palol (ibid.) remarks on the presence of the two fish inside the basin and compares this decoration with a similar one in the font from Martos, also originally from Jaén and now in the MAN in Madrid. [NB: the Martos font has four fish]. Noted in Castillo Maldonado (2006).