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Document Details : Title: Il dubbio di Pilato Subtitle: Il Processo di Cristo nel Tetravangelo di Rossano e le sue fonti Author(s): SPECIALE, Lucinia Journal: Orientalia Christiana Periodica Volume: 90 Issue: 2 Date: 2024 Pages: 445-459 DOI: 10.2143/OCP.90.2.3294458 Abstract : The Codex Purpureus Rossanensis, the largest of the three surviving illustrated purple manuscripts, contains a remarkable cycle of Gospel stories. The illustrated sequence begins with the Resurrection of Lazarus, continues with the most important episodes of the Passion and ends with a unique variation of the Trial of Christ. The episode is divided in two scenes, but lacks the final event of the Trial, corresponding to Matthew 27:24: ‘Pilate, seeing that nothing came of it and that the tumult increased, washed his hands before the crowd’. This version of the Trial has been explained in various ways. Some scholars have speculated that the handwashing scene was lost, while others have argued that the image was not part the original programme. The restoration executed by the Istituto Centrale per la Patologia dell’Archivio e del Libro (Rome 2013-2015) made it possible to reexamine the initial quires of the codex. This investigation confermed that the final section of the cycle was lost and that the image depicting the washing of Pilate’s hands was the climax of a sequence of three scenes. Identifying the sources of this scene remains a matter of debate, although one hypothesis suggests that it may have been inspired by an illustrated edition of Justinian’s Digest. |
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