Santasensio de los Cantos / San Asensio de los Cantos / Santo Asensio de los Cantos

Described and illustrated in López de Silanes Valgañón (2000) as a baptismal font probably of the 13th century, of a type not uncommon in the boundary area of Burgos-La Rioja: a hemispherical basin decorated with a garland around the upper basin side, and with a ribbed pattern around the sides and underbowl; the base is a square pedestal with mouldings. This last source (ibid.) gives the fonts at Baños de Rioja, Santasensio los Cantos, Ojacastro, Ezcaray, Valgañón and Anguta [now at Valgañón] as cognates of the one at Santurde de Rioja [cf. Index entry for Santurde de Rioja]. Sáenz Rodríguez (2004) and the Enciclopedia del románico en La Rioja (2008) suggest it is product of the Oja-Tirón workshop, albeit the worst specimen of font issued by it, but this association may be more geographical than artistic. Noted and illustrated in Rioja Románica [https://www.riojaromanica.com/categorias/pilas-bautismales#] [accessed 22 November 2020]: "Esta pila bautismal puede echarse a comienzos del siglo XIII. Tiene un pie prismático con acanaladuras y una taza semiesférica con gallones." The basin is a very crude work, a roughly hemispherical basin with broad irregular ribs; the base, by contrast, the quadrangular pedestal base is of later date and more accomplished, with mouldings at top and bottom, the body decorated with piping constrained in the middle by another moulding. [NB: this base may have been brought together with the basin to replace an earlier and cruder base].