The Mouth of Truth

The Mouth of Truth is a manhole cover portraying a pagan god with a great open mouth. It is located in the portico of the church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin. The legend says that the mouth could cut the hand of the liars.

A very clever woman broke the spell. She was the wife of a patrician, and she was indicted as an adulterous. The day of the trial in front of the Mouth of Truth, an unknown man, the woman’s lover, came and kissed and hugged her. The crowd who attended the trial, wanted to lynch the man but the woman defended him saying that he was only a fool. So she put her hand in the Mouth and said that she never kissed and hugged anyone except her husband and that poor crazy man. Her hand was safe and the Mouth of Truth offended by her behaviour, didn’t carry on it’s judging task and the spell was broken. Actually the judges in the Middle Age used the Mouth to decide if an accused was guilty or not. If they were persuaded of his guiltiness, they made him cut his hand: in fact there was a person hidden behind the Mouth who cut it.

Anyway this legend has a great psychological influence; I saw  people hesitating in front of the Mouth. In fact in Roman Holydays, the Mouth of Truth scene was very spontaneous, because Gregory Peck, in agreement with the Director Wyler, decided to play a trick on Audrey Hepburn. He pretended to have his hand cut: she was really scared and the scene was filmed only once. Would you hesitate in front of that Mouth?

Useful information

You can reach the Mouth of Truth taking the Metro Line B to Circo Massimo or by bus n. 95, 160, 170, 44, 716 e 781.