Crossword-Solution: FORNAX 6 letters, 1 clue 🏆 scrabble score: 16

Then again, religion, which everywhere entered into the ancient manners and customs of Italy, as it does into the new, reveals itself in the paintings of the _pistrinum_; we there see the sacrifices to Fornax, the patroness of ovens and the saint of kitchens.

Upon the walls were painted two enormous serpents, sacred reptiles which protected the altar of Fornax, the culinary divinity.

The figures in the upper ones are said to represent the worship of the goddess Fornax, the goddess of the oven, which seems to have been deified solely for the advantages which it possessed over the old method of baking on the hearth.

The oven also was of late introduction, as we have hinted in speaking of the goddess Fornax, nor did it ever come into exclusive use.

Fosbroke is decisive in the opinion that pancakes on Shrove Tuesday were taken from the heathen Fornacalia, celebrated on the 18th of February, in memory of making bread, before ovens were invented, by the goddess Fornax.