page_title: Pontius Pilate
section_title: High and late medieval and renaissance art
hierarchical_section_title: Pontius Pilate / Art, literature, and film / Visual art / High and late medieval and renaissance art
context_page_description: Pontius Pilate was the fifth governor of the Roman province of Judaea, serving under Emperor Tiberius from 26/27 to 36/37 CE. He is best known today for being the official who presided over the trial of Jesus and ordered his crucifixion. Pilate's importance in modern Christianity is underscored by his prominent place in both the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds. Due to the Gospels' portrayal of Pilate as reluctant to execute Jesus, the Ethiopian Church believes that Pilate became a Christian and venerates him as a martyr and saint, a belief historically shared by the Coptic Church.
  Although Pilate is the best-attested governor of Judaea, few sources on his rule have survived. He appears to have belonged to the well-attested Pontii family of Samnite origin, but nothing is known for certain about his life before he became governor of Judaea, nor of the circumstances that led to his appointment to the governorship. A single inscription from Pilate's governorship has survived, the so-called Pilate stone, as have coins that he minted.
context_section_description: In the thirteenth century, depictions of the events of Christ's passion came to dominate all visual art forms—these depictions of the "Passion cycle" do not always include Pilate, but they often do so; when he is included, he is often given stereotyped Jewish features. One of the earliest examples of Pilate rendered as a Jew is from the eleventh century on the Hildesheim cathedral doors (see image, above right). This is the first known usage of the motif of Pilate being influenced and corrupted by the Devil in Medieval Art. While some believe that the Devil on the doors is rendered as the Jew in disguise, other scholars hold that the Devil's connection to the Jews here is a little less direct, as the motif of the Jew as the Devil was not well-established at that point. Rather, increased tensions between Christians and Jews initiated the association of Jews as friends of the Devil, and the art alludes to this alliance. Pilate is typically represented in fourteen different scenes from his life; however, more than half of all thirteenth-century representations of Pilate show the trial of Jesus. Pilate also comes to be frequently depicted as present at the crucifixion, by the fifteenth century being a standard element of crucifixion artwork. While many images still draw from the Acts of Pilate, the Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine is the primary source for depictions of Pilate from the second half of the thirteenth century onward. Pilate now frequently appears in illuminations for books of hours, as well as in the richly illuminated Bibles moralisées, which include many biographical scenes adopted from the legendary material, although Pilate's washing of hands remains the most frequently depicted scene. In the Bible moralisée, Pilate is generally depicted as a Jew. In many other images, however, he is depicted as a king or with a mixture of attributes of a Jew and a king.
  The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries see fewer depictions of Pilate, although he generally appears in cycles of artwork on the passion. He is sometimes replaced by Herod, Annas, and Caiaphas in the trial scene. Depictions of Pilate in this period are mostly found in private devotional settings such as on ivory or in books; he is also a major subject in a number of panel-paintings, mostly German, and frescoes, mostly Scandinavian. The most frequent scene to include Pilate is his washing of his hands; Pilate is typically portrayed similarly to the high priests as an old, bearded man, often wearing a Jewish hat but sometimes a crown, and typically carrying a scepter. Images of Pilate were especially popular in Italy, where, however, he was almost always portrayed as a Roman, and often appears in the new medium of large-scale church paintings. Pilate continued to be represented in various manuscript picture bibles and devotional works as well, often with innovative iconography, sometimes depicting scenes from the Pilate legends. Many, mostly German, engravings and woodcuts of Pilate were created in the fifteenth century. Images of Pilate were printed in the Biblia pauperum ("Bibles of the Poor"), picture bibles focusing on the life of Christ, as well as the Speculum Humanae Salvationis ("Mirror of Human Salvation"), which continued to be printed into the sixteenth century.
caption: Ecce Homo from the Legnica Polyptych by Nikolaus Obilman, Silesia, 1466. Pilate stands beside Christ in a Jewish hat and golden robes.
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