Since the end of the seventeenth century, the basin has been in the romanic baptistry which was demolished and rebuilt a little to the east, where it now stands, along with the font allowing room for the new colonnade. The basin is a monolith in ollàre stone (the local green stone that was used to make cooking pots and architectural elements) and is decorated with sculptures in half relief, representing the benediction of the water and the baptism itself. The work was carried out in 1156 in order to serve the entire parish of San Lorenzo, which at that time comprised the San Giacomo Valley (or Spluga Valley), the Italian part of Bregaglia Valley and the lower valley incorporating Mese and San Cassiano.
This is how it should be read. The figure of the celebrating dean reading the missal held by an acolyte opens the scene. Behind the dean, the clergymen: five altar boys carrying the crucifix of the procession, the candelestick, the censer, the ampullae with the olis of the catechumen and of the chrism respectively. Behind the acolyte and the altar boys with the Easter Candle, there are the laymen: the child who is to be baptised held by his godfather, and three representatives of the social classes of that period: the nobleman on his horse, the "vicino", owner of the feudal lands in the rural area, guarded by castles or, according to one view, by the villager, represented by the person in the tower; and, lastly, the merchant-artisan, symbolised by the blacksmith. On the vertical border of the collar there is an inscription that continues on the horizontal face, difficult to read, however made clear by a seventeenth century deed: "Anno ab incarnacione D(omi)ni n(ost)ri Ih(es)u Xpi (Christi) Mill(esimo) C LVI indicione quarta mense marci fons iste factus est sub consulibus Clavenabus et Plurensibus. Betrame de Solar Girardus Muso Azo Beldon Petrus Rastel Girardus de Co&´ de Pont Ato Mora et Guidon de Pluri fecerunt".
That is: In the year after the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ 1156, 4th indication, month of March, this font was built under the rule of the consuls of Chiavenna and Piuro. The names refer to tyhe protagonists of this work; the four consuls of Chiavenna and the two of Piuro, wich were at that time the same municipality. The last name, Guido di Piuro, could be the actual sculptor of the font.
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Informazioni ex art. 1, comma 125, della legge 4 agosto 2017 n. 124
Relativamente agli aiuti di Stato e aiuti de Minimis, si rimanda a quanto contenuto nel
“Registro nazionale degli aiuti di Stato” di cui all’articolo 52 L. 234/2012 (www.rna.gov.it).
