艺廊作品介绍
真理之口（意大利语：La Bocca della Verità）是意大利罗马的一处人面大理石雕刻，位于希腊圣母堂门廊的左墙上。一般认为，真理之口是1世纪一处古罗马喷泉的一部分，或者一个井盖，描绘的可能是一个古希腊或古罗马宗教的神祇。
从中世纪开始，人们相信如果有人撒谎，将手伸进真理之口中，就会被咬住。在17世纪，它被安放在希腊圣母堂的门廊。由于该教堂收藏有圣瓦伦丁（Saint Valentine）的头骨，真理之口也有了和爱情相关的含义。
通俗文化
对于英语国家的人们而言，最为熟悉的是真理之口出现在1953年电影《罗马假期》中。这部电影也使用真理之口作为测谎仪，因为赫本和派克两人最初并未告知真实身份。这一场景也出现在1994年电影《我心属于你（Only You）》中。
在JOJO的奇妙冒险第二部《战斗潮流》中，真理之口是柱之男沉睡之处的入口。
复制品及类似雕塑
真理之口的复制品经常出现在西班牙和匈牙利的游乐场、英国的一些高速公路服务站，和丹麦的一些火车站的电子投币口。
在印度泰米尔纳德邦的马哈巴利普兰也有一个类似的狮子雕像，根据当地传说，如果说谎，手会被咬住。
摘自维基百科「真理之口」，按 CC BY-SA 4.0 使用，繁体已转简体，去掉了参考文献、外部链接等尾部小节和表格，其余文字未作改动。
中文条目比较短，展开看英文维基百科的条目（英文原文）
The Mouth of Truth (Italian: Bocca della Verità [ˈbokka della veriˈta]) is an ancient Roman marble mask in Rome, Italy, which stands against the left wall of the portico of the Santa Maria in Cosmedin church, at the Piazza della Bocca della Verità, the site of the ancient Forum Boarium (cattle market). According to an enduring medieval legend, it will bite off the hand of any liar who places their hand in its mouth, or, alternatively, any who utters a lie while their hand is in the mouth. It still attracts many visitors who insert their hands.
The massive marble mask weighs about 1,300 kg (2,900 lb) and probably depicts the face of the sea titan god Oceanus. The eyes, nostrils and mouth are open. Historians are not quite certain what the original purpose of the disc was. It was possibly used as a drain cover in the nearby Temple of Hercules Victor, which had an oculus (a round open space in the middle of the roof) similar to that of the Pantheon. Hence, it could rain inside. It is also thought that cattle merchants used it to drain the blood of cattle sacrificed to the demi-god Hercules.
In the 13th century the disc was probably removed from the temple and placed against the wall of the Santa Maria in Cosmedin. In the 17th century it eventually moved to its current location inside the portico of the church.
Cultural references and derivative works
The Mouth of Truth has been featured as a theme in historical European art. Lucas Cranach the Elder, a German painter during the Renaissance period, created two paintings depicting a woman placing her hand in the mouth of a statue of a lion while onlookers watched, a subject which was drawn by Albrecht Altdorfer and made into a woodcut by the Dutch printmaker Lucas van Leyden.
The Mouth of Truth appears in the 1953 film Roman Holiday as a storytelling device as Hepburn's and Peck's characters are not truthful with each other. The sculpture is one of six genuine artifacts returned in place replicas in Lupin the Third: Operation Return the Treasure. Robert Silverberg uses the Mouth of Truth as a means of providing the information that leads to the climax of his novella Nightwings. In Het geheim van de afgebeten vingers by Dutch writer Rindert Kromhout, the fingers of lying children are cut off with a scythe by a skeleton who lives in the Capuchin Crypt in the Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini.
There are a number of Bocca della Verità replicas and derivative works. A full-size reproduction sits in the Alta Vista Gardens in California and one of Jules Blanchard's sculptures in the Luxembourg Garden in Paris depicts a woman with her hand in the sculpture's mouth. Coin-operated fortune teller machines have been developed and installed in different parts of the world, including one on display in the Musée Mécanique in San Francisco.
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