Cappelle n. 27/29/30/31/32/34/35 (Palazzo di Pilato)

At the corner of Piazza dei Tribunali, this curious Renaissance structure is built directly into the rock. It is essentially a double-decker arrangement of seven chapels, stacked across two levels and linked by a ground-floor corridor and an upper loggia. The upper portico is the more striking: a triple-aisled space with cross-vaults, slender fluted columns, and a carved stone balustrade. The rock itself forms much of the lower walls, faced with plastered masonry. An external stone stairway, called the “Scala Santa”, leads up to this arcaded gallery, while a second staircase on the north side climbs directly to chapel number 27. That chapel, square in plan, holds a painted scene of Christ’s first presentation before Pilate. The whole complex reads less as a conventional church and more as a layered, theatrical device for re-enacting the Passion, carved into the very stone of the old town.

Description via source. Coordinates and heritage data from the Atika atlas.