The Fountain of Life or Fountain of Living Waters is a Christian iconographic symbol associated with baptism and the eucharist. It first appearing in the 5th century in illuminated manuscripts and later in other art forms such as panel paintings. The iconographic Fountain of Life is connected to older traditions of a physical fountain that gives immortality, also known as the Fountain of Youth.
Baptismal font 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"Sit fons vivus" said the priest in the traditional Roman missal when blessing the baptismal font, in the Benedictio Fontis. 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.
Fountain of blood 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,Book of Revelation 22:1. 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.
In a miniature in a Book of Hours,British Library, Add MS 17026, f. 13, noted by Underhill 1910). probably painted at Ghent at the end of the 15th century, the Fountain of Living Water has given way to a fountain of blood, the Fountain of Life, in which the figure of Christ stands upon a Gothic pedestal at the center and fills the fountain from his wounds, though the aureole that surrounds him identifies him as the transfigured Christ and the location as Paradise.
Blood from the Five Holy Wounds In Flanders at the close of the Middle Ages an intense devotion to the Precious Blood of Christ gave rise to an iconographic tradition of the 15th and 16th centuries, which rendered the theological concept of Grace,See Catholic Encyclopedia 1908: "Grace". expressing Roman Catholic dogma allegorically as a fountain of blood. This transformation was first addressed in Evelyn Underhill in 1910, taking her point of departure an Assembly of Saints and the Fountain of Life of 1596 in Ghent,Painted, probably by Lucas Horenbault for the Beguines of Ghent. in which blood from the five Holy Wounds of Christ flows into the upper basin of a "Fountain of Life"Inscribed "fonteyn des levens". and streams out through openings in the lower "Fountain of Mercy". Saints and martyrs, patriarchs and prophets hold golden chalices of blood, which some empty into the fountain. Below the faithful hold out their hearts to receive droplets of blood.
In legend The symbolic Fountain of Life is connected to ancient traditions of life-giving waters. A very early example is the Mesopotamian hero Gilgamesh's search for immortality in The Epic of Gilgamesh. Around the 4th century, legends of a quest for the Water of Life became attached to Alexander the Great. The story appears in Recension Beta (β) of the Greek Alexander Romance, a fantastical narrative of the conqueror written between 300 and 550 AD.
The story depicts Alexander's servant Andreas discovering the Water of Life while washing a salted fish, which then comes to life. The episode proved very popular, appearing in many later versions of the Alexander cycle, including the Babylonian Talmud and the Syriac Song of Alexander. The Song of Alexander draws more heavily on Christian iconography than earlier versions, employing baptismal terminology to describe bathing in the fountain and using the fish as a symbol of the resurrection of Jesus. The Romances tale of Alexander's quest for the Water of Life influenced many later traditions, including the legends of Prester John, The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, and the legend of Ponce de Leon seeking the fountain while discovering Florida, today the most best known version.Olschki, L. (1941). Ponce de León’s Fountain of Youth: History of a Geographical Myth. The Hispanic American Historical Review, 21(3), 361–385. https://doi.org/10.2307/2507328
See also Odinsaker Life-giving Spring, for Byzantine Marian iconography (mediatrix, mother of all graces) Church of St. Mary of the Spring (Istanbul), a 6th-century Eastern Orthodox sanctuary in Istanbul Zoodochos Pigi (disambiguation)
Notes
References Leslie Brubaker (1989). "Fountain of Life". Dictionary of the Middle Ages. vol-5. Underhill, Evelyn (1910). "The Fountain of Life: An Iconographical Study" The Burlington Magazine 17'''.86 (May 1910), pp. 99–101 and illus. (available on-line through JSTOR). Paul Underwood, "The Fountain of Life in Manuscripts of the Gospels", Dubarton Oaks Papers'', 5 (1950).