A reverence for history’s art

RAVENNA, Italy — This city, ancient and new, feels as if it is by the sea — it is in the air, the mist in which large umbrella pines, oleander and bougainvillea thrive — but the Adriatic no longer laps at Ravenna’s door. It’s five miles away.

The naval base that Augustus Caesar developed here may have been home to a fleet of 250 ships. The base was in Classe — Classis to the Romans — about three miles southeast of Ravenna.

Thus it was that the Basilica of St. Apollinare in Classe (to distinguish it from the earlier St. Apollinare Nuovo) was built so sailors could attend conveniently. Earlier here means about 50 years, and that was in the first part of the sixth century.

Now the road from metropolitan Ravenna to the rural setting of St. Apollinare in Classe passes through flat farmland, with shopping areas and large apartment buildings clustered beside the highway.

It is neither the sea nor Caesar that brings travelers to Ravenna. On the interior walls, domes and floors of churches, baptisteries and mausoleums awaits what has been called the world’s greatest collection of Byzantine art. Ravenna is, bar none, No. 1 for mosaics; the craft is still practiced, sold in shops and taught in university classes.

On a chilly, foggy morning, I walk outside the Basilica of St. Vitale, completed about 548. The walls of long, thin bricks do not seem remarkable except that they obviously are very old. I enter the basilica, and the sun breaks out, shining through the alabaster windows to illuminate the interior, showing off the fields of gold tesserae in the mosaics at their most brilliant.

St. Vitale’s mosaics stun the eyes with color. Their size, beauty and power are overwhelming. It is impossible to concentrate as I scan the vivid biblical and historical scenes. I turn in the center of the church and notice the eight massive pillars soaring to support the cupola and shoulder much of the weight of the roof. Several sections of the floor are the original tesserae.

The Women’s Gallery stretches around seven sides of this octagon, at either end embracing the sanctuary, or choir. I wonder if the star is the assemblage of mosaics or the building, but it is both. Above the altar, the dome of the apse is dominated by a large mosaic of a clean-shaven Christ the Redeemer sitting on a blue globe between two white-robed archangels with wings of gold.

On the other side of the angel on the left is St. Vitale, with his name in Latin above his head. The figure on the far right, similarly identified, is Bishop Ecclesius, who began construction of the church after returning from a mission to Byzantium in the first quarter of the sixth century. Angels, saint and bishop stand on grass amid lambs — six on each side — and white lilies; Christ and his globe do not touch the grass but instead are surrounded by the gold background of the mosaic.

This is just part of the apse wall; to its side, the two facing walls of the sanctuary also are covered with mosaics of biblical themes and personages. Mosaic medallions of the Apostles are separated by dolphins and leaves on the side of the front of the triumphal arch that frames the sanctuary. The large mosaic pictures include “The Hospitality of Abraham” and “Sacrifice of Abel and that of Melchizedek.” Up there is Jeremiah; over there is Moses, who in one scene is tending sheep and in another approaching the burning bush.

Another mosaic depicts the Empress Theodora, in purple, carrying a jewel-studded golden chalice. She is attended by two civilian officials and seven women, two of whom look more important than the others. The mosaicist has adorned the bottom of Theodora’s splendid robe with his depiction of the Magi bringing gifts to the Christ Child. In another picture is Theodora’s husband, Justinian, the Roman emperor — one of the greatest — who ruled from 527 to 565.

St. Vitale is an example of Ravenna’s treasures, one of the great eight that are listed among the World Heritage Sites of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO. These include other churches, baptisteries and mausoleums, the earliest of them being the so-called Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, which shares the same parklike setting with St. Vitale. With grass, trees, flowers and birds, the setting becomes a holy precinct.

Ravenna, under Augustus Caesar, became a major naval base for the Roman Empire in the northern Adriatic. Later, Emperor Flavius Honorius moved the capital of the Western Roman Empire from Milan to Ravenna, and afterward it became the seat of the Byzantine Empire in Italy until the eighth century, when the Lombards broke the Byzantines’ control of the peninsula.

Honorius’ sister was Galla Placidia (A.D. 386 to 450), daughter of Emperor Theodosius I and his second wife, also Galla and a daughter of Valentinian I. This well-connected woman is believed to have ordered the mausoleum now named for her, which was attached to a church no longer existing. Ravenna was a city of churches, having about 200 of them by the year 500.

Through the centuries it often has been claimed that Galla Placidia’s remains were placed in a sarcophagus in the mausoleum, but more authorities now say she died in Rome, was buried there and was not brought to Ravenna.

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