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 d'Olt (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
...with this ambiguous example from Milan...
...with another at Codiponte in NW Tuscany...
...and finally with this half-mermaid in Parma with horns and one leg ending
in a ?claw
- which further establish the motif as one of serious sin.
A more elaborate depiction of wickedness in the form of a mermaid
can be seen at the church of San Vicente de Serrapio, Aller (Asturias).
A Gryphon attacks her, biting her tail, and a human figure does something
enigmatic to the upper part of her torso.
A tongue-stricking demon scowls over one shoulder...