Stationary holy water fonts, usually made of bronze, marble, granite, or any other solid stone, and also of terra-cotta, consist of a small tub or basin sometimes detached or resting on a base or pedicle, sometimes imbedded in the wall or in one of the pillars of the church. Occasionally these are under the porch. In the West there were scarcely any stationary fonts prior to the eleventh century. Some fonts are antique objects, urns or hollowed-out capitals, made to serve a purpose other than that for which they were first intended. When the stone is porous it is lined with lead or tin, so as to prevent absorption, the same course being followed with copper fonts to guard against oxidation.
Some fonts are exterior, being fastened to the piers or jambs of the portal.
Usually they are not very large. Boldetti, who is always very cautious, claims to have found different fonts in the catacombs, some made of marble, others of terra-cotta, and still others of glass. A sort of tufa basin, which may have served the same purpose, was also found. In the cemetery of Callistus there is a truncated column which, according to J. B. de Rossi, must have held the same kind of a vessel as those containing holy water in our churches. We could enumerate other probable examples, especially in the catacomb of St. Saturninus, in the crypt of St. Cornelius, and in the basilica of St. Alexander on the Via Nomentana.