DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.847#0332
TUSCANIA. 309
which they were originally designed. In front, the
great door is formed of an immense and beautifully
ornamented arch of that rounded style usually with
us called Saxon. Above, there is a beautiful wheel
window, and a profusion of carving of different ages
and styles. I was particularly struck with one large
carved group which bore a greater resemblance
to a Hindoo representation of a trinity, than any-
thing not Indian I have ever seen. Did we not know
the thing to be impossible, I should be tempted on
the strength of this sculptured stone to assert, that
Bramah, Scheva, and Vishnu, must at some former
period have found adorers in Etruria. There is a
distinct representation of a trinity of colossal size.
Three monstrous faces growing together, one full
face in the middle, and a profile on each side. The
arms of the figure are in the act of squeezing and
destroying a writhing serpent. This very curious
monument occasioned to us many interesting specu-
lations. It certainly could not have belonged to the
christian period ; for although unskilled in ecclesi-
astical architecture and ornament as a system, we had
become sufficiently familiar with it on the whole, to
pronounce that this Tuscanian trinity was not the
work of Christians in any age of the church, the
rudest representations of early Christianity being to-
tally dissimilar. Besides, this is by no means rude,
it is monstrous. No less certain were we, that it is
not a monument of classical antiquity, and that it
resembles closely some Asiatic representation of a
which they were originally designed. In front, the
great door is formed of an immense and beautifully
ornamented arch of that rounded style usually with
us called Saxon. Above, there is a beautiful wheel
window, and a profusion of carving of different ages
and styles. I was particularly struck with one large
carved group which bore a greater resemblance
to a Hindoo representation of a trinity, than any-
thing not Indian I have ever seen. Did we not know
the thing to be impossible, I should be tempted on
the strength of this sculptured stone to assert, that
Bramah, Scheva, and Vishnu, must at some former
period have found adorers in Etruria. There is a
distinct representation of a trinity of colossal size.
Three monstrous faces growing together, one full
face in the middle, and a profile on each side. The
arms of the figure are in the act of squeezing and
destroying a writhing serpent. This very curious
monument occasioned to us many interesting specu-
lations. It certainly could not have belonged to the
christian period ; for although unskilled in ecclesi-
astical architecture and ornament as a system, we had
become sufficiently familiar with it on the whole, to
pronounce that this Tuscanian trinity was not the
work of Christians in any age of the church, the
rudest representations of early Christianity being to-
tally dissimilar. Besides, this is by no means rude,
it is monstrous. No less certain were we, that it is
not a monument of classical antiquity, and that it
resembles closely some Asiatic representation of a