The Mouth of Truth—Santa Maria in Cosmedin ★

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

Crowds from tour buses do not flock to this lovely medieval church for the 11th century frescoes on the walls of the atmospherically dim interior, nor for the lovely 12th century bell tower, nor for the marvlous particolored cosmatesque pavement that decorate the floors in fabulous mosaic patterns of cut stone.

It's not even the fact that this church contains the flower-crowned skull of St. Valentine himself, a 3rd century Roman bishop of Terni and famed patron saint of lovers the world over. (Most of the rest of Valentine is, believe it or not, in a church in Dublin.)

It's an ancient Roman sewer-covering hanging inside the portico.

The Mouth of Truth

The Bocca della Verità is a heavy stone disc carved in the 4th century 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 all that sounds vaguely familiar, it's because Gregory Peck did this 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 rehearsed 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.)

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