Fontenoy-le-Chateau / Fontenay / Fonteniacum Castellum / Fontenoi le Chasteil / Fontenoy le Chastel / Fontenoy-le-Château

The present baptismal font of this church is illustrated in Mémoire [ref.: AP54L03073]: "fonts baptismaux [...] 1552". Noted and illustrated in the page on Dianne de Dommartin [https://briceverre.pagesperso-orange.fr/Diane de Dommartin] [accessed 25 November 2022]: "Diane naquit le 20 septembre 1552 au château de Fontenoy. Pour son baptême, son père offre de nouveaux fonts baptismaux à l'église. Ces fonts, toujours visibles portent les armes des Dommartin et la date de 1552." Baptismal font consisting of a polygonal [octagonal?] basin with badly-eroded tapering sides decorated with what appear to be floral or foliage motifs; the stone appears to be soft sandstone by the erosion pattern; raised on a polygonal [octagonal?] pedestal base with very prominent standing figures, probably apostles or saints; the faintly-delineated niches in which they stand have traceried patterns on the arches, and are topped by protruding scallops that are located at the bottom of the underbowl; the lower base is also polygonal [octagonal?] and is decorated at the front with a shield bearing a coat of arms identified below as the arms of Louis de Dommartin, the donor of the font in 1552; the lower base is supported by lion protomes. The metal cover is a polygonal [octagonal?] dome with a ball or orb finial; it may originally have had a cross on top. The entry for this church in Wikipedia notes on its baptismal font: "Pour le baptême de sa fille Diane en 1552, il [Louis de Dommartin] offrit à l'église de remarquables fonts baptismaux aux armes des Dommartin. Ces fonts baptismaux, dont la cuve octogonale était rongée par la corrosion du sel, utilisé pour les baptêmes depuis cinq siècles, ont fait en 2007 l'objet d'une soigneuse restauration." [NB: the original priory church here dated back to Romanesque times, but we have no information on the font from that church].