The house of Ponzio Pilato and Ecce Homo Shrine

The House of Pilate is the first in a series of chapels that mark the route of the Via Dolorosa.

The building summarises three episodes of the Passion based on the hypotheses connected to the places where the relics related to these events were venerated in sixteenth-century Jerusalem. In two internal niches, the sculptural scenes of the Flagellation and the Crowning with Thorns depict a suffering and resigned Christ surrounded by figures that are immediately recognisable as bad, due to the different colour of their complexion and their tense, grotesque features.

The Ecce Homo is located in the niche of an external shrine, where a partially visible fresco accurately integrates the painted background with the terracotta relief sculpture, attributed to Marco della Robbia, son of Giovanni. Pilate has Christ escorted to the balcony and asks the crowd to choose whether to free him or Barabbas.

The space beneath the niche screened off with a metal grate once housed a statue of Barabbas in prison, which seems to have been damaged by superstitious stoning during the nineteenth century.