Jesus is being watched carefully by the priests and scribes, who hope to have him arrested as a threat to Roman rule. The Tribute Money by James Tissot . European Art. Verse 19. The Tribute Money (Le denier de César) James Tissot. 24 When they arrived in Capernaum, the collectors of the half-shekel [temple tax] went up to Peter and said, “Does not your teacher pay the half-shekel?” 25 Peter answered, “Yes.” And when he came home, Jesus spoke to him first, saying, “What do you think, Simon? [Jesus paid the tribute in such a manner as to show that the whole realm of nature was tributary to him, and that he was indeed the Son of the great King. - The tribute money; τὸ νόμισμα τοῦ κήνσου: the coin of the tribute; that is, the coin in which the tribute was paid.The reply to the question was wholly unexpected. The scene depicted in The Tribute Money is consistently lit from the upper right and is in sync with the actual lighting of the chapel, which comes from a window on the wall to the right of the fresco. The Tribute Money. Shall We Give, or Shall We Not Give? The Tribute Money is a painting on the wall of a church. This type of painting is known as fresco, meaning fresh in Italian. The Tribute Money separates itself by adding emphasis to the human qualities of the characters and making the painting about the people in the story rather than the story itself. The Tribute Money offered the perfect subject to express the new humanistic sense of the harmony between piety and worldly obligations. Tribute money definition is - money paid as tribute; specifically : the annual tax of a didrachm or half shekel paid by each Jew for the support of the temple. This is evidence of the humanist movement in art. Some have thought that our Lord's beneficence, in paying Peter's tax also, was an evidence that Peter, too, was exempt from tribute… It illustrates the Biblical account of Christ and the tribute money . The Pharisaic "disciples" had hoped that Christ would have taken part against the Herodians; but he gives no decision about the matter in dispute, such as they desired. The Tribute Money - When they came to Capernaum, those who collected the two-drachma tax came to Peter and said, “Does your teacher not pay the two-drachma tax?” He *said, “Yes.” And when he came into the house, Jesus spoke to him first, saying, “What do you think, Simon? THE MAGNIFICENT PAINTING above, known as the Tribute Money, is a fresco from the Brancacci Chapel in Florence, Italy, and is the work of the first great master of the Italian Renaissance, Masaccio (1401–1428). Humanism is an important instrument and indicator of the change in thinking during the Italian Renaissance. The Tribute Money is a 1612-1614 painting by Peter Paul Rubens, which has been in the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco since 1944. The artist uses a paint that can stick to a plaster wall, and must be painted while the portion of the wall is damp.