Chapel 31 - The Crowning with Thorns

It depicts the scene in which soldiers mock Jesus, dressing him in a falsely regal way, placing a crown of thorns on his head, a cane in his hands and a purple cloth on his shoulders. Soldiers beat him and spit on him.
It is part of the Pilate Palace and was built at the beginning of the seventeenth century. In 1608 an agreement was signed with a local artist, Anselmo de Otina di Rassa, for the painted decoration. The frescoes on the back wall were started (traces of them are still preserved under the current decoration), but probably they were not matching expectations because in 1614 Ortensio Crespi of Cerano (brother of the more famous artist "Cerano"), artist of the paintings on the back wall and perhaps also on the right wall and the wooden panel on the facade above, made the paintings. The attribution of the decoration on the left wall, ascribed to the local artist Testa, is doubtful.
Bishop Taverna, who climbed to the Sacred Mount in September 1617, saw the frescoes and sculptures already completed. The statues, by Giovanni d'Enrico, were shaped in the first decade of the seventeenth century.