Realejo de Arriba / Realejo Alto / Los Realejos

INFORMATION

FontID: 07866REA
Object Type: Baptismal Font1
Church/Chapel: Iglesia Parroquial de Santiago
Church Patron Saints: St. James the Greater [aka James the Great, James the Elder]
Country Name: Spain
Location: Canarias, Canarias
Directions to Site: Located on the island of Tenerife
Font Location in Church: Inside the church
Date: ca. 1610?
Century and Period: 17th century(early), Renaissance
Church Notes: This church, dated to 1498, is the oldest in Tenerife. The island's Guanche chiefs surrendered to the Spanish in 1496
Font Notes:
Described in Hernández Pérez (2001: 2) as a baptismal font made of jasper in the Renaissance style; originally made in Lisbon, Portugal, for export to the Canary Islands; the cost of the font was 17,856 "maravedís" according to this source. This same source (ibid.: 1) informs that there was an earlier font, one of the so-called green fonts ["pilas verdes"], a green-glazed basin ["un lebrillo barnizado de verde"] brought to the island by Alonso de Millán, to baptise in it the Menceyes who had surrendered to the Spanish forces [ca. 1496] [NB: there is no record of what happened to this original basin].

MEDIUM AND MEASUREMENTS

Material: stone, jasper

REFERENCES

Hernández Pérez, Melecio, "Las pilas bautismales de la Peña de Francia", 11 August 2001, El Día Digital, 2001, pp. 1-3; p. 2