Roman, Gothic and Byzantine: Two centuries of beauty
A Latin hexameter on a wall of the Archiepiscopal Chapel says: Aut lux hic nata est aut capta hic libera regnat. "Either light was born here, or captured here reigns free." |
In few other places art and history were so intensely intertwined in so brief a span of time. The presence of the Imperial and later Gothic and Byzantine court at Ravenna created a unique artistic culture. The art form of mosaic was not born in Ravenna, but here it reached one of its highest expressions. The mosaic is considered the artistic technique that can best express the transcendence of holy depictions. Ravenna is a witness to the transition from Greek-Roman naturalism to the abstract gold backgrounds and stylized figures of Byzantine art, from the paleo-Christian basilican structure to the Oriental centralized structure for churches; a transition which gave birth to monuments characterized by amazing external sobriety and internal richness.
THE ANCIENT AND ROMAN PERIOD
Founded by Umbrians and Etruscans, Ravenna is one of the most ancient cities of Italy. The oldest archaeological findings date back to the 4th c. BC. -enna is an Etruscan suffix, but the meaning of the name is still a mystery. During Roman Republican times the city became a municipium. Augustus chose her port at Classis - from the Latin name for "fleet": now called Classe - as one of the two bases for his military fleet (the other was at Misenum), the largest base of western Mediterranean, able to host 250 ships and 10.000 classiarii. He connected the harbour to the Po River by the Fossa Augusta. Ravenna became the hub of communications between the Adriatic (and thus the Eastern Empire) and the Po Valley, strategically crucial: a wide lagoon separated the city from the main land, making her almost impregnable.
| Italian poet Gabriele D'Annunzio said of Ravenna: Glauca notte rutilante d'oro, "Cerulean night blazing with gold", possibly thinking about the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia. |
Emperor Honorius, Theodosius' son, abandoned Milan in 402 under threat of Alaric's Visigoths and moved the capital of the Western Roman Empire to Ravenna, though the interment due to deposits of soil from the streams flowing from the Apennines had already diminished the importance of the harbour. The city began to blossom with monuments. Galla Placidia, Theodosius' daughter and Honorius' sister, was - like Stilicho and later Theodoric - an example of the exchange between cultures so typical of the times. Captured by the Visigoths, she married King Ataulf. When he died she came back briefly to Ravenna and then to Constantinople. She acted as regent for her son Valentinianus, finding herself at the helm of the Western Empire.
When she died she was probably buried in Rome and not in Ravenna; the so-called
Mausoleum of Galla Placidia (about 450) is more probably a chapel dedicated to St. Lawrence. This small, unassuming building with an almost-Greek cross base, atmospherically lit only by tiny alabaster windows, contains a mosaic cycle of unique richness, symbolically depicting the victory of life over death: St. Lawrence triumphant, doves and deer drinking - a portrayal of the consolation of the soul in God - and the Good Shepherd, a beloved symbol of paleo-Christian art. [pic]
Carl Gustav Jung had an affecting experience in Ravenna. While visiting the Neonian Baptistery in the 1930s, he was struck by a mosaic showing Christ holding out his hand to Peter about to drown. He reflected on that image as an expression of "the archetypal idea of death and rebirth". Later he discovered that there was no such mosaic, if not a similar image in a nearby building, destroyed years earlier. He saw his experience as a meeting between unconscious and conscious mind, when physical eyes perceive a vision that doesn't belong to reality but is anyway a part of experience. |
To the Roman period also dates the
Baptistery of the Orthodox (or
Neonian, completed about 450 by bishop Neonius). The stark building, situated next to what was the Catholic cathedral, the Basilica Ursiana (now the Duomo, entirely remade in the 1700s), houses a three-tiered mosaic cycle: the Baptism of Christ in the cupola, with the River Jordan personified by an old man, a row of Apostles and a symbolic row of thrones and crosses. [pic]
[Archiepiscopal Chapel]
THEODORIC'S TIME
In Ravenna, Odoacer deposed the last Western emperor in 476, and his own adventure too ended there seventeen years later at the hands of Theodoric, King of the Ostrogoths. From 493 to 526 Ravenna was the Arian and Gothic court of this controversial barbarian king educated in Constantinople. Theodoric knew the role of cities in the organization and defence of the territory; his administration granted Italy a spell of peace and economic reprise, and he was able to restore some cities and lower taxes to encourage citizens to do the same. His interventions ranged from Trent to Parma to Catania, but especially in his favourite residences, Verona, Pavia and of course Ravenna. He built fortifications, thermae, aqueducts, royal palaces, religious buildings. Ravenna's National Museum still contains two sections of lead pipes, part of the Aqueduct of Trajan restored by Theodoric. They are inscribed with the words
DN REX THEODERICUS CIVITATI REDDIDIT, "The Lord King Theodoric gave this back to the city". His political intent was to present himself as a true follower of the Roman rulers, restoring their work for the sake of Ravenna and Italy.
Towards the end of the 5th century, Theodoric built an Arian religious complex comprising the cathedral or
Anastasis Gothorum (currently Church of the Holy Spirit; only part of the original 6th century building remains) and the
Baptistery of the Arians: an octagonal building, patterned on the Neonian Baptistery with a mosaic portraying the Baptism of Christ and a circle of Apostles in the dome. [pic] The rest of the walls is bare. The difference between the two similar-themed dome mosaics is the first appearance in the Baptistery of the Arians of the golden background instead of the realistic blue of the older mosaics. Also, Christ is depicted as an earthly, naked young man, in accordance with Arian theories that see Him only as a created being and thus inferior to God the Father.
In 467, 9 years before the coming of Odoacer, Sidonius Apollinaris was not impressed with Ravenna but he already perceived her cultural unusualness. "A pretty
place Cesena must be if Ravenna is better, for there your ears are
pierced by the mosquito of the Po and a talkative mob of frogs is
always croaking round you. Ravenna is a mere marsh where all the
conditions of life are reversed, where walls fall and waters stand,
towers flow down and ships squat... eunuchs
study the art of war and the barbarian mercenaries study
literature." (Letter 1.8, translation by Edward Hutton from Ravenna, a Study, 1913.) |
Theodoric also enlarged an existing palace to create his residence. He built the palatine chapel, dedicated to Jesus Christ the Saviour, currently
Sant'Apollinare Nuovo. It has a basilican structure, and the round belfry (from a later time), that is characteristic of many churches in Ravenna. The central nave contains mosaics from Theodoric's time in the upper level (Life of Christ), and two rows of virgins and martyrs in pure Byzantine style in the lower level. [pic] The earlier decoration of the lower level, probably dedicated to the Arian cult and to Theodoric, was mostly destroyed during Byzantine domination. Only the two great panels depicting the harbour of Classe and the city with the "Palatium" [pic] remain, but they were heavily modified when the church was re-consecrated. Probably the likeness of Theodoric himself was subjected to the
damnatio memoriae when the spaces between the columns of the Palatium were covered with generic drapery, since it is still possible to see over the columns the hands of members of the court. However the church contains a detached mosaic that looks like an older Justinian wearing the imperial insignia on his shoulder, but is thought to be a portrait of Theodoric adapted to look like Justinian. [pic]
Theodoric's royal palace was destroyed over the centuries. The so-called
Palace of Theodoric, just south of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo along the Via Romea (now Via di Roma), is probably a later building, currently housing fragments of mosaics from the original royal palace. [pic] The foundations of the original palace were discovered by Gherardo Ghirardini (and immediately covered up again) at the beginning of the 20th century, east of the church, where it once stood facing the sea.
North-east of the city, currently inside a park not far from the railway station, stands the
Mausoleum of Theodoric (c. 520), built in great blocks of Istrian stone, topped by a 300-ton monolith. It once stood by the sea, isolated in the middle of a Gothic burial ground. It is built on two levels: the lower level was possibly used for liturgy, or as a burial chamber for the king's relatives, while the upper level houses a porphyry basin where Theodoric himself might have been buried. The king's remains were dispersed during Byzantine rule. Halfway between barbarism and classical ambition, the building is a summary of the complex character of Theodoric, and the final resting place of the Gothic civilization.
THE BYZANTINE PERIOD
Eight Ravenna monuments are part of the UNESCO World Heritage List: the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, San Vitale, Sant'Apollinare Nuovo, the Neonian Baptistery, the Oratory of S. Andrea - Archiepiscopal Chapel, the Mausoleum of Theodoric, the Arian Baptistery and Sant'Apollinare in Classe. |
After Theodoric's death in 526, the Byzantine-Gothic war erased most of his work. Milan was destroyed, Rome disabled, only Ravenna preserved part of her past splendour. Byzantine general Belisarius captured the city from the Ostrogothic king Vitiges in 539, and she became the centre of Emperor Justinian's Byzantine Italy thanks to the great bishop Maximianus and the Greek banker Julianus Argentarius. During the following 30 years of peace were built the churches of San Vitale and Sant'Apollinare in Classe.
San Vitale, begun under Theodoric, reveals its Oriental influences in its octagonal base with a dome. Its grand, solemn mosaics are possibly the last true expression of Roman civilization. It is the apotheosis of the Byzantine rulers: the two mosaic panels with the depiction of the court, possibly conceived by Bishop Maximianus himself, are among the most beautiful and famous portraits in the world. Justinian and Theodora appear in their majesty, stylized, still, unchanging; their intense faces do have a psychological dimension, but they become symbols of unlimited, unearthly authority, depending only from God. In the apse the image of Christ is still naturalistic; even in the Justinian panel, the portraits of Maximianus and Belisarius are very realistic. Architecture and decoration, intimately linked, offer here the highest point of the tendency, characteristic of late-Roman and paleo-Christian art, to dematerialize space. There is no central entrance, but two lateral ones: [pic] entrance and presbytery are not aligned. The mosaics are pure colour, almost disembodied; columns and capitals are like a lace decoration with no plasticity.
Sant'Apollinare in Classe was built with Julianus Argentarius' funds and blessed by Maximianus in 549. It stands now with its characteristic round belfry in the middle of the countryside, but was erected by the seaside near the place where the ancient port was. The inside, with a basilican structure, is wide, serene, luminous. In the apse, Christ is symbolized by a great cross, hovering over the earth, adored by St. Apollinare and the lambs representing the faithful. [pic]
Nearby are the remains of the Roman harbour of Classe, and the fabled pine woods sung by Dante Alighieri.
THE LONG DECLINE
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Sweet hour of twilight!- in the solitude
Of the pine forest, and the silent shore
Which bounds Ravenna’s immemorial wood,
Rooted where once the Adrian wave flow’d o’er,
To where the last Caesarean fortress stood...
- George Gordon, Lord Byron
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In 568 the Lombard invasion put an end to the political unity of Byzantine Italy and reduced Ravenna to capital of the Exarchate, the military province where the Byzantine resisted until 751. Her impregnability depended from supplies from the sea: when the Eastern Empire was not able to protect Ravenna anymore due to its internal crises, the city fell to the Lombards of King Astolf, who was later forced by the Franks to relinquish Ravenna to the Holy See, along with other cities of the Exarchate and the Pentapolis. The northward movement of the main branch of the Po River had already dealt a bad blow to the city's importance: her golden age was over. Since then, Ravenna's only real claim to fame is the presence of poet Dante Alighieri, who died and was buried there in 1321. The Byzantine school of mosaics will bloom anew in the city that will also continue Ravenna's political tradition: Venice.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
www.turismo.ravenna.it
The American Peoples Encyclopaedia, Grolier Incorporated, New York, 1962
Italia, Touring Editore srl, Milano 1997
L'Italia Antica, Touring Club Editore, Milano 2002
Guida rapida d'Italia, vol. 2, Touring Club Editore, Milano 1993
Capire l'Italia - Le Città, Touring Club Editore, Milano 1973
La bellezza di Dio: L'Arte Bizantina, Edizioni S. Paolo, 2003
L'Arte racconta: I mosaici di S. Vitale di Ravenna, 1965, Fratelli Fabbri Editori, Milano & Skira, Ginevra.
Conosci l'Italia: L'arte nel Medioevo, TCI, Milano 1964
Text:
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