Estella No. 8 / Lizarra / L'Ilzarra

Fragment of a medieval font reported in Uranga Galdiano (1943). The Museo de Navarra reports the fragment of a baptismal font held at some point in the church of San Miguel, Estella, as being now in the storage facilities of the museum [text of an email received from the Museo: "en las actas de la Comisión de Monumentos Históricos y Artísticos de Navarra correspondientes a 1982 se menciona la adquisición de ”una pila cuadrada con motivos góticos en su decoración, del siglo XIII”. Esta pieza junto a un capitel procedente del antiguo Palacio Real de Estella y un tímpano mutilado del siglo XII “estaban reunidos en la iglesia de San Miguel de Estella”. Sus medidas son 28.5 x 81 x 53.5 cm. -- email communication 29 January 2015 from Ana Redín Armañanzas, staff, Museo de Navarra, to BSI]. The object appears to be a fragment of a a quadrangular [square?] baptismal font with decorated sides; the full side remaining has a frame of tiny squares around three trefoiled arch-heads each containing a rosette inside it; the central arch-head has a very large irregular hole made through it; in the two spandrels of the arch-heads are hexafoils (?) in a circle; waht remains of the two sides is decorated with the same pattern of tiny squares; the back is not visible as it is against the wall [NB: the description above is based on a B&W photograph facilitated by the Museo de Navarra [file and email of 28 January 2015]; the object is in remote storage and not accessible at present [28 January 2015]]. The hole in the from side suggests the old basin may have been used as a water trough after its disuse. The museum documentation [cf. supra] gives the original location as old royal palace of Estella, with the font being later found in the church of San Miguel, also in Estella, not in use but in its lapidarium. From there it was moved in 1910 to the old museum that was housed in the Camara de Comptos;from there the fragment went into the collections of the Museo de Navarra in 1982 [NB: the contents of the Camara de Comptos museum ended up eventually in the Museo de Navarra; the former was dismantled in 1956].