Scattered around the city, you can still find these stone boxes called `bocche di leone' or `lions' mouths.' They look innocent enough today, sometimes beside a stone lion or the statue of a comic figure. Their function was somewhat more sinister.
Citizens wrote their complaints and dropped them in the boxes where they were collected by state officials. Often the boxes were used for simple complaints about neighbors, but sometimes accusations of serious offences were made. Such an accusation, placed in a `bocche di leone' could lead to the arrest of a person and his punishment without trial, or even execution. They remain a legacy of a crueler and more ruthless past.
