Description
The Mouth of Truth is a large marble mask with a gaping mouth, set into the portico of the church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, in Rome. Legend says it bites the hands of liars.
When Gregory Peck stuck his hand into the Mouth and pulled it out with no hand, in the 1953 film Roman Holiday, Audrey Hepburn's scream was real. Nobody had warned her: the gag was entirely the actor's idea.
The face is that of a bearded man, in pavonazzetto marble, much worn. The eyes, nose and mouth are pierced and hollow. Over time it has been interpreted as Jupiter Ammon, as the sea god Oceanus, as an oracle or as a faun. In the hair you can see two crab claws: a sign that it was a sea god, perhaps Oceanus.
It was made for a much humbler purpose. In ancient Rome the mask was a drain cover: the god “swallowed” rainwater, since all waters were thought to return to him, the father of waters.
In the Middle Ages it became a legend. It was said to bite the hand of anyone who lied, and some people brought along a spouse suspected of infidelity. Some even said that Virgil had built it, a sixth-century scholar with a reputation as a magician.
An unfaithful wife, a popular story goes, managed to save her hand with a trick. She had her lover, disguised as a madman, come and embrace her in front of everyone. Then she swore she had never been embraced by anyone but her husband and that man. It was the truth, and her hand stayed where it was.
The name “Mouth of Truth” appears in 1485. Originally the sculpture stood outside the portico; it was moved under it during the restoration ordered by Pope Urban VIII in the seventeenth century, and it is still there.
The portico belongs to the church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, and the mask's fame predates cinema: already in the eleventh century a medieval guide for pilgrims credited it with the power to pronounce oracles.
When Gregory Peck stuck his hand into the Mouth and pulled it out with no hand, in the 1953 film Roman Holiday, Audrey Hepburn's scream was real. Nobody had warned her: the gag was entirely the actor's idea.
The face is that of a bearded man, in pavonazzetto marble, much worn. The eyes, nose and mouth are pierced and hollow. Over time it has been interpreted as Jupiter Ammon, as the sea god Oceanus, as an oracle or as a faun. In the hair you can see two crab claws: a sign that it was a sea god, perhaps Oceanus.
It was made for a much humbler purpose. In ancient Rome the mask was a drain cover: the god “swallowed” rainwater, since all waters were thought to return to him, the father of waters.
In the Middle Ages it became a legend. It was said to bite the hand of anyone who lied, and some people brought along a spouse suspected of infidelity. Some even said that Virgil had built it, a sixth-century scholar with a reputation as a magician.
An unfaithful wife, a popular story goes, managed to save her hand with a trick. She had her lover, disguised as a madman, come and embrace her in front of everyone. Then she swore she had never been embraced by anyone but her husband and that man. It was the truth, and her hand stayed where it was.
The name “Mouth of Truth” appears in 1485. Originally the sculpture stood outside the portico; it was moved under it during the restoration ordered by Pope Urban VIII in the seventeenth century, and it is still there.
The portico belongs to the church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, and the mask's fame predates cinema: already in the eleventh century a medieval guide for pilgrims credited it with the power to pronounce oracles.