Audio Guide Rome – Bocca della Verità

La Bocca della verità (“the Mouth of Truth”) can be found inside the portico of the church of Saint Mary in Cosmedin and it probably stays there since the year 1632 when it was removed from some other place.

The Mouth of Truth is a big, ancient, round stone whose diameter is around 1,75 meters. It’s a man-like face portraying one of several possible pagan gods, probably Oceanus, or maybe just the head of a faun.

As the time went by, lots of legends told that this round stone could have been used to close the passage of an old cloaca (one of the world’s earliest sewage systems) or to close the sacred well inside the temple of Mercury inside the Forum Boarium.

The well cover inside the temple was used primarily as a pledge table for merchants to promise that they would grant about their honesty.

This gave origin to the idea that the “Mouth of Truth” would be like a judge.

Since the Middle ages, whoever was thought to be lying, would be tested by the “Mouth of Truth”.