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The Mouth of Truth
It's a shame that so many who stop to see the Bocca della Verità (Mouth of Truth) on the porch don't take the time to go inside the church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin itself
The Mouth of Truth (Bocca della Verità) in Rome, Italy.
It's not the 11th century frescoes on the walls, the lovely 12th century bell tower, or the particolored cosmatesque pavement inside that draw the crowds to this medeival church; it's the ancient Roman sewer-covering inside the portico.
The Bocca della Verità is a heavy stone disc carved in the 4th cenutry B.C. as a grotesque, bearded face with a gaping, dark slot for a mouth. It got its nickname, the "Mouth of Truth," from the medieval tradition that
holds if you stick your hand in its mouth and tell a lie, it'll clamp down on your fingers. (Apparently, a priest once added some sting to this belief by hiding behind the mouth with a scorpion, dispensing justice as he saw fit.)
If that sounds familiar, it's because Gregory Peck did so in Roman Holiday to impress Audrey Hepburn. (Film legend holds that, when it came time to film the famous scene, Peck veered from how they'd reheared it, tucked his hand up his sleeve, and threw his all into pretending the thing really had bit off his hand, which is why Hepburn's shrieking is genuine.)
Piazza Bocca della Verità 18
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This article was last updated in January 2007. All information was accurate at the time.
Copyright © 1998–2008 by Reid Bramblett. All rights reserved.
