Santa Pau / Santuari dels Arcs de Santa Pau

All that remains of the original font at Santa Pau are a few fragments and some old photographs. The font is described and partially illustrated in Catalunya romànica (1984- ) as one of the roughly rectangular objects in this area of Catalonia usually referred to as 'oil-fonts' ["piques d'oli"]. One of the sides, probably the front -of which a photograph exists- shows two registers: the lower one is plain except for a trio of rosettes on the lower left hand corner [it is suggested that the row continued all the way across to the right but it was already eroded when the photograph was taken]; the upper register, by contrast, shows a combination of very interesting motifs: at the far right, a vertical rope moulding marks the edge and links this side with the next; to the left of the rope moulding there are four floral motifs [they have five "petals" and look like palmettes] inscribed in circles and arranged in two rows separated by a wavy line that is really a snake moving towards the tree in the centre; the centre of the upper register is occupied by a tree with four leaning branches, and several rosettes of the type found in the lower register; the left of the upper register contains a fortress on which stands a human figure holding an unidentified object in his hands. The source elaborates on the meanings of this iconographic program and suggests a dating within the Romanesque period towards the end of the 12th century. It is known that the font had been used, as many such others in the Val d'Aran area, as a container for the tithe oil. The font was destroyed in 1936. Described and illustrated in Noguera Massa (2007).