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Somers Congregational Church — John Phelan, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Bocca della Verita

Attraction · Ripa, Lazio

A marble disc roughly 1.80 m across, set in the pronaos of Santa Maria in Cosmedin since 1632 and sharing that basilica's visiting hours. It carries a bearded male face, read as Jupiter, a faun or a river god, with the eyes, nose and mouth pierced, flanked by a scarab, two pincers and two wolf heads.

History

The disc is probably a Roman drain cover from the reign of Tarquinius Superbus, who built the Cloaca Maxima. The name dates from 1485 and attaches to the medieval story that the mouth would bite the hand of a liar. William Wyler's Roman Holiday, of 1953, put it into the tourist imagination.

Visit

Piazza della Bocca della Verita 18, Roma RM

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