The Priest Zachariah is slaughtered at the Command of King Herod

Legend has it that the father of John the Baptist, the high priest Zachariah, refused to surrender his young son to king Herod’s soldiers during the Massacre of the Innocents in Bethlehem. He sent his wife Elizabeth and the young John in hiding in the mountains. In punishment, king Herod commanded that he should be beheaded. The painting shows Zachariah in church in front of the altar, dropping onto his knees with a pained expression as a Roman soldier slits his throat with a knife. Next to these proceedings is a gathering of gesticulating women and one man. The panel was presumably painted by an un-known Greek artist working in Italy. The Greek traits are evi-dent in the Greek inscription at the top and in the fact that the folds of the draperies have been painted as white orna-mental lines. Zachariah’s halo is also executed in the Greek style: as a smooth disc.