CANTARÓ. - From the Greek κάνθαρος, a kind of drinking cup with a wide opening; it is also used to designate the basin from which water gushes in Roman houses or in front of temples. It was placed in the atria of Christian basilicas, protected by means of a tegurium supported by columns, and served for the ablutions of the faithful. St. Paulinus of Nola in the year 397 describes for us the c. placed in the atrium of the Vatican basilica (CSEL, XXIX, pp. 94-95). In the letter to his friend Severus on the arrangement of basilicas he repeats that Cantharus intrantumque manus laxat, amne ministro (CSEL, XXX, p. 290). In the atrium of the basilica of St. Paul too there stood a c., and the inscription placed there by St. Leo the Great (440-61) invited the faithful to wash their hands: abluè fonte manus (G. B. De Rossi, Inscriptiones christianae, II, 1, Rome 1888, pp. 80-81). An inscription on the c. of Blera admonishes Christiane lava manus et ora.
Pope Symmachus (498-514) placed ornaments on the c. already existing in front of the Vatican basilica and set up another foris in campo.
At Tebessa in Africa too, in the atrium of the Byzantine basilica the remains of a c. were discovered, and another was found in Tunisia at Zaghouan. It appears that a c. was also located in the atrium of the rebuilt basilica of St. Sophia at the time of Justinian. Another is recognizable in the mosaic of St. Vitalis in Ravenna where the empress Theodora is represented.
In the Middle Ages the c. in front of the Vatican basilica was replaced by the bronze pinea, of which Pietro Mallio and Philip van Winghe have left us a description. Two c. still remain in Rome: one in the atrium of the basilica of St. Cecilia, the other in the cloister of the Sts. Quattro Coronati (v. ABLUZIONE).
On many Christian tombstones the c. is represented as the vessel of life, at which the doves (the souls) come to drink. A kind of support for candles was later called a c.; hence in the Lib. pont. the expressions canthara, cereostata, fara canthara, etc. often appear (e.g. Lib. pont., I, 173).
Bibliography
Enrico Josi