Cortile di Pilato

Gorgeous courtyard

When you just enter the church it's one of the simplest, but inside it's beautiful

Beautiful place with splendid architecture in this group of churches.

Cozy and very beautiful.

The Courtyard of Pilate, so called to commemorate the lithostrotos, the place where Jesus was condemned, is accessed by exiting the church of the Sepulcher. The courtyard is bordered to the north and south by two Romanesque-style arcades with characteristic cruciform columns in brick and has a limestone basin in the center resting on a pedestal (more recent, 16th century), the so-called "Catino di Pilato" : this basin is a Lombard work dating back to 737-744 and bears an inscription under the edge of which the most accredited transcription is reported: «+ UMILIB (US) VOTE SUSCIPE D (OMI) NE D (OM) N (ORUM) N (OST) R (ORUM) LIUTPRAN (TE) ILPRAN (TE) REGIB (US) ET D (OM) N (O) BARBATU EPISC (OPO) S (AN) C (TE) HECCL (ESIE) B (O) N (ONIEN) S (I) S. HIC I (N) H (ONOREM) R (ELIGIOSI) SUA PRAECEPTA OBTULERUNT, UNDE HUNC VAS IMPLEATUR IN CENAM D (OMI) NI SALVAT (ORI) S, ET SI QUA MUN (ER) AC (UISQUAM) MINUERIT, D (EU ) S REQ (UIRET) " Under the portico, in the center of a window, on a column, there is a stone rooster dating back to the fourteenth century, called "St. Peter's Rooster" to commemorate the evangelical episode of Jesus' denial. It is possible to observe some mortuary tombstones including one, with a pair of real scissors in the center, belonging to a tailor. Significant for the symbolism of the passion of Christ is that the distance between this courtyard and the nearby church of San Giovanni in Monte (so called because it stands on the only natural protuberance of the central plate of Bologna) would be the same as in Jerusalem between the Holy Sepulcher and Calvary.