Santa Maria la Nueva, Zamora (Zamora, Spain)
As at La Seu d'Urgell, Luxuria is
represented by a Mermaid in an acrobatic posture, but here she has a huge
hole between her legs.
This carving is on the left-hand side of the doorway to one of new fewer than
21 Romanesque churches in the town.
Compare first with ancient Luristan
bronzes,
then with a more subtle French mermaid at Saint-Côme (Aveyron), whose
folded tails form a vulvic mandorla...
photo by Jacques Martin
...and with a rare tongue-sticking mermaid at Courpière (Puy-de-Dôme)...
photo by Joël Jalladeau
...and with this ambiguous example from Milan...
...and finally with these mermaids in Parma being bitten by serpents
- which further establish the motif as one of carnal sin.
