Sorbano del Giudice / Sorbano di Giudice / Suburbanum

Described and illustrated by Letizia Badalassi [http://lucca.cribecu.sns.it/mv] as a composite baptismal font made up of three blocks of independent origin: the basin proper, a roughly cylindrical block with two ornamentation registers; the lower register is completly filled with a dragon with an avian body, two heads, and an ofidian neck and tail; the head that stems from the neck has flattened ears, while the other is a snake head; the first head sinks its teeth into the neck od the second head; the second head thrusts out with its tonge pointed towards the body of the dragon. The figures of the upper register are described thus in Badalassi (ibid.): a bird, probably a duck, two facing fish separated by a worn inscription that gives the name of the artist, Biduinus. Badalassi (ibid.) informs that this basin had been used in the 19th century as a well in a private residence and later, in recent times, mounted on the backs of two surviving lions, forming thus a small composition used now as baptismal font. Another source [www.parrocchie.it/luca/sorbano] gives the date of the composition as 1953, and informs that the lions had been adorning the parapet of the esplanade at the time. The two lions supporting this font are mentioned as being mid-12thC by Guido Tigler's 'Il cantiere di Sant-Antimo nel suo contesto istorico', in Nuove ricerche su Sant'Antimo (Firenze: Alinea Editrice, 200: 21). The entry for this church in Wikiwand [www.wikiwand.com/it/Chiesa_di_San_Giorgio_(Lucca)] [accessed 27 October 2020] notes: " I due leoni accovacciati sostenevano probabilmente le colonne di un pulpito che aggettava dal presbiterio. Ora sono collocati sotto il fonte battesimale, una semplice vasca circolare attorno alla quale si snoda il corpo di un drago. L'epigrafe che vi è incisa rivela in Biduino l'artefice dell'opera, databile alla seconda metà del XII secolo. "