THE MOUTH OF TRUTH

Today many visitors still get the creeps if they stick their hand in the “Bocca della Verità“, the mouth of truth. Yet even those who have not yet visited this ancient disc-shaped mask in Rome know of the myth about liars getting their hands bitten off. However, Cranach’s painting of the same name is only indirectly connected with the Roman sculpture. Rather it is a medieval tale, probably of Northern origin, that is being depicted here and which only became mixed up with the Roman folk tale later on. So Cranach did not yet present the disc-shaped mask, but instead his “lie detector” comes in the shape of a lion. This lion represents the magical automat, which according to the aforementioned myth, Virgil the sorcerer is supposed to have invented in Rome to bite the fingers off adulterous wives. Accused of adultery by her jealous husband, a woman was one day brought to this mouth of truth, where she was to be examined before her husband, a judge and various witnesses. By disguising her lover as a jester and allowing herself to be touched by him in front of the assembled witnesses, the accused wife managed to cleverly extricate herself since she was now able to truthfully swear that apart from her husband and this jester, nobody else had touched her. So when she put her hand in the mouth of truth it remained unscathed. For this reason the story could at the same time be ascribed to the “Weibermachten – Powers of Women” as one of those examples of female cunning prevailing over male wisdom and experience.

In Cranach‘s panel this tale was painted for the first time, although there were forerunners for it in northern drawing and printing, for instance Albrecht Altdorfer and Lucas van Leyden. As with other examples, here Cranach was also able to develop a subject for panel painting for the first time.

• Cranach, The mouth of truth, about 1525/30, private collection

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