The Trial of Christ, Anti-Semitism and Pilatus in Sixteenth-Century Art

The lecture is about the images presenting the trial of Jesus in a unique convention, with anti-Semitic motif. Jews are holding tables with inscriptions containing a statement defending or accusing Christ. The source of this image was in 16^th century, when discovered the Pilate`s sentences: in Vienna and in Aquila. The news of the document’s existence has spread throughout Christian Europe. The sentence portrayed Pilate in bad light. Still in 1580 German Protestants decided to use it to their own propaganda purposes directed against the Jewish community. At that time the situation of the Jews in Germany was difficult because of their persecutions and extraditions. As the Germans were trying at all costs to prove that the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation was a continuation of the antique Roman Empire, they decided not to present their prefect in bad light and instead provide evidence that it was the Jews who passed an unjust sentence. That is why they substantially shortened the sentence formula and subdued its tone, adding to it the protocol of Sanhedrin which contained 19 sentences uttered by the members of the Sanhedrin. The Protocol of Sanhedrin ends in a quotation from the Bible: "Let his blood be on us and on our children". The book containing this apocrypha was published in Nuremberg, referred to as the genuine document found in Aquila. Its text inspired numerous works of art depicting the scene of Jesus’ trial, with Caiaphas in the central place surrounded by the Sanhedrin.