Candoso São Martinho

Church listed in SIPA [IPA.00001926] [http://www.monumentos.gov.pt/Site/APP_PagesUser/SIPA.aspx?id=1926] [accessed 12 September 2025]. The entry for this church in the Portuguese Wikipedia [https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igreja_Matriz_de_São_Martinho_de_Candoso] [accessed 12 September 2025] reports a number of early-Christian, Visigothic, Romanesque ansd Baroque elements in it, among which a Visigothic baptismal font: "No seu interior encontramos traços dos estilos paleocristão, visigótico, românico e barroco. Destacam-se, imediatamente após a entrada principal, à esquerda, a pia batismal de estilo visigótico." Noted and illustrated in Almeida (1971) as a baptismal font that incorporates motifs of an earlier style. Almeida adds in a footnote that, more than a revival, the appearance of such motifs on mid-13th century and later works is really more a transposition of techniques and themes that were originally designed for woodwork, onto stone. Be that as it may, such motifs are plentiful on stone works of the Romanesque period in different countries. Despite Almeida's theory, the particular case of this font is one of revival of motifs common in the Romanesque period, now used in a more stylised form on a work that is clearly of a later period. The coarse granite baptismal font consists of a polygonal basin with a tall underbowl chamfer that has been carved on a torsade shape; the sides of the basin have framed panels with a motif in each, the motifs being stylised versions of a common Romanesque motif, the inscribed floral or star; the only exception is the motif in the panel on which the padlock is, but this is not an original carving on the granite; at some point the patch was replaced with plaster or cement and four-petal floral motif entered there, clearly at odds with the rest of the decoration on this font; the lower end of the underbowl has a rope moulding; the pedestal base is a plain torsade, slightly splaying outwards, and the lower volume has plain vertical sides with a rope moulding atop. The wooden cover is round and flat, with a hasp that locks on the side of the basin [cf. supra]; the cover appears to be modern. [NB: the original church here is said to have existed already in the mid-11th century, but we have no information on its earlier font].