Fountain of life

The Fountain of Life, or in its earlier form the Fountain of Living Waters, is a Christian iconography symbol associated with baptism and/or eucharist, first appearing in the 5th century in illuminated manuscripts and later in other art forms such as panel paintings.

The symbol is usually shown as a fountain enclosed in a hexagonal structure capped by a rounded dome and supported by eight columns. The fountain of living waters, fons vivus is a baptismal font (a water fountain in which one is baptized, and thus reborn with Christ), and is often surrounded by animals associated with Baptism such as the hart. The font probably represents the octagonal Lateran Baptistery in Rome, consecrated by Pope Sixtus III (432-440), which was iconographically associated with the fountain of the water of life mentioned in .

The best examples date from the Carolingian period: the Godescalc Evangelistary made to commemorate the Baptism of the son of Charlemagne in 781, and in the Soissons Gospels.

In the Ghent Altarpiece: The Adoration of the Lamb by Jan van Eyck (1438), the Lamb of God stands upon an altar dressed as for the Mass of the Precious Blood, with a blood-red frontal: the Lamb's blood is caught in a chalice, and its Eucharistic intention is signaled by the dove of the Holy Spirit above. In the foreground, offering the other means of grace, is the Fountain of the Living Water surrounded by the faithful. In the Prado, Madrid, is the Fountain of Living Water emanating from the Lamb of God, in which the open fountain is set into the outer wall of Heaven. That the water is not merely the purifying water of baptism is shown by the innumerable wafers that float upon its surface: the two sacraments are represented as one.

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