It is altogether a strange-looking spot, that Piazza della
Bocca della Verita, standing as it does on the confines of what may
be called the inhabited part of Rome and that portion of the huge
space within the walls which still remains sacred to the past and its
memories and remains. But not the least strange thing about it is its
name--the _Piazza of the Mouth of Truth_! There is a story of some one
of the great doctors of the early ages of Christianity having taught
in the very ancient church which stands on the side of the piazza
farthest from the Tiber. Ay, to be sure, the name must come very
evidently thence. The "mouth of truth" was the mouth of that seraphic
or angelic or golden-tongued or other "doctor gentium," and the old
church and the piazza still preserve the memory of his eloquence. Not
a bit of it! Under the venerable-looking portico of this church there
is a huge colossal marble mask, with a gaping mouth in the middle of
it. There it lies, totally unconnected in any way with the various
other relics of the past around it--tombs and frescoes and
mosaics--and the stranger wonders what it is, and how it came there.
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