Chapter XX: The Pineta (7)

Of this great man Agnellus records: "He was beautiful in appearance, lovely in aspect; before him there was no bishop like him in wisdom, nor any other after him." He was a native of Imola, then called Forum Cornelii, and was ordained deacon by the bishop of that city, one Cornelius, of whom he always speaks with affection and gratitude. When the bishop of Ravenna died, it is said the clergy of the cathedral, then just built or building, with the people, chose a successor, and besought the bishop of Imola to go to Rome to obtain the confirmation of the pope. Cornelius took with him his deacon Peter, and the pope, who had been commanded so to do by the Prince of the Apostles in a dream, refused to ratify the election already made, but proposed Peter the deacon as the bishop chosen by S. Peter himself. Peter was there and then consecrated bishop, was conducted to Ravenna, and received with acclamation. He is said to have found a certain amount of paganism still remaining in his diocese, and to have completely extirpated it. He often preached before the Augusta Galla Placidia and her son Valentinian III., and he was perhaps the first archbishop of the see, Ravenna till his time having been suffragan to Milan. He seems to have died about 450 in Imola. Among his many buildings, which included the monastery of S. Andrea at Classis, is the little chapel now dedicated in his honour in the _Arcivescovado_ of Ravenna. It is perhaps the only one of his works which remains. The little square chamber, out of which the sanctuary opens, is upheld by four arches, which are covered, as is the vaulting, with most precious mosaics, still of the fifth century, though they have been and are still being much restored. On the angles of the vaulting, on a gold ground, we see four glorious white angels holding aloft in their upraised hands the symbol of Our Lord. Between them are the mighty signs of the Four Evangelists, the angel, the lion, the ox, and the eagle. In the key, as it were, of the arches east and west is a medallion of Our Lord, and three by three under the arch on either side the eleven Apostles and S. Paul, who takes the place of Judas instead of Matthias. In the key of the arches north and south is a medallion of the symbol of Christ, and three by three under the arch on either side six saints, the men to the right SS. Damian, Fabian, Sebastian, Chrysanthus, Chrysologus, and Cassianus; the women to the left SS. Cecilia, Eugenia, Eufemia, Felicitas, Perpetua, and Daria. Here the SS. Fabian, Sebastian, and Damian, Dr. Ricci tells us, are altogether restorations. For the rest, these mosaics have suffered much, both from restoration, properly so called, and from painting.

The pavement is old and beautiful, as I think are the walls, but the frescoes, once by Luca Longhi, are most unworthy and out of place. The recess which now contains the altar might seem not to have made a part of the original chapel or oratory; it appears it was only in the eighteenth century that the two were thrown into one. At that time the mosaics of the Blessed Virgin and of S. Apollinaris and S. Vitalis were brought here from the old cathedral.

Just outside this wonderful little chapel in the _Arcivescovado_ there is an apartment devoted to Roman and other remains found from time to time in Ravenna: a torso of a statue, a work of Roman antiquity, should be noted, as should certain fragments of a frieze, also an antique Roman work. Here, too, is preserved the splendid cope of S. Giovanni Angeloptes who was archbishop from 477 to 494[1] when he died.

[Footnote 1: Cf. A. Testi Rasponi, _op. cit. supra_.]

In another apartment of the _Arcivescovado_ is preserved a relic of another great archbishop of Ravenna: the ivory throne of S. Maximianus. This is a magnificent work of the early part of the sixth century, and is one of the most splendid works known to us of its kind. It was made for the cathedral of Ravenna, but in or about the year 1001 it was carried off by the Venetians and given by doge Pietro Orseolo II. to the emperor Otto III., who left it to the church of Ravenna on his death. It is entirely formed of ivory leaves, most of them carved sumptuously in relief. In front we see the monogram of _Maximianus Episcopus_ and under it are carvings of S. John Baptist between the Four Evangelists; all these between elaborately carved decorative panels. About the throne to right and left is the story of Joseph in ten panels, and upon the back in the seven panels that remain[2] the miracles of Our Lord. Altogether it is a work of the most lovely kind, and certainly Byzantine.

[Footnote 2: Four of those missing, Dr. Ricci tells us, have of late years been discovered, one in the Naples Museum (1893), one in the collection of Count Stroganoff (1903), one at Pesaro (1894), and another in the Archaeological Museum at Milan (1905).]

We shall come upon S. Maximianus again in S. Vitale, where something must be said of him. He lies, as has already been noted, in one of the great sarcophagi in the second chapel on the right in the cathedral.

From the _Arcivescovado_ we pass to what is now the most remarkable building of the group--the Baptistery.

Dr. Ricci tells us that it was originally one of the halls of the baths that were near the present cathedral. But it was converted into a baptistery and ornamented with mosaics by the archbishop Neon of Ravenna (_c_. 449-459) as its inscriptions tell us and is signed with his monogram. The original floor is three metres below that we see, and a second floor about a metre and a half above the original floor has been discovered; this it would seem is that made by Neon, while a third remains about half a metre under the pavement we use, and upon this are set the eight columns, with their capitals, two of them Byzantine and the rest Roman, which uphold the arches of the upper arcade upon which is set the great drum of the dome. The plan is a simple octagon, bare brick without, covered with a "tent" roof of amphorae under the tiles; but within, everywhere encrusted with glorious marbles and mosaics.

It is to the mosaic of the cupola that we instinctively turn first, for it is, perhaps, the finest left to us in Ravenna. It is divided into three parts. In the midst is the Baptism of Our Lord on a gold ground. Christ stands up to His waist in the clear waters of the Jordan, the god of which river waits upon Him. S. John high up on the bank, his staff, topped with a cross, in his hand, pours the water from a shell upon Our Lord's head while the Dove, an almost heraldic figure, is seen above About this circular mosaic is set a greater circle in which we see, upon a blue ground, the twelve Apostles in procession, each bearing his crown. Nothing left to us of that age is finer or more gravely splendid than these mosaics, they seem to be the highest expression of a great art which has known how to reject the brutal realism of an earlier time and to seize perfectly the secret of decoration. Nothing of the kind more masterly remains to us in Europe.

Beneath these two circles another is set in which are eight panels, each of three parts, where are represented eight temples, four of them with thrones signed with the Cross, and four of them with altars upon which the book of the Gospel is open.

The whole cupola is borne by the upper arcade, where we see sixteen figures of the Prophets in stucco. The upper arcade is in its turn borne by the lower, which is everywhere encrusted with mosaics, restorations of our own time. The walls are panelled with various marbles. In the midst of the building is a huge octagonal font with its _ambo_, and in one of the wall niches is an ancient altar, and in another a vase of marble.

The effect of all this splendour is even to-day very lovely and glorious; what it might have been if it had been properly cared for instead of "restored" we can only guess. Unhappily the "restoration" has been very radical. Even in the central Baptism, the head and shoulders and right arm of the figure of the Saviour, the head and shoulders and right arm, the right leg and foot of the Baptist and the cross in his his left hand have been destroyed and the whole dimmed and even spoiled. Such as it is, however, where shall we find its equal or anything to compare with it?

From the cathedral group we now turn to the other churches which were built in the time of the old empire in Ravenna for the most part, in the days, that is, of Galla Placidia and her son Valentinian III.

Among these is the church of S. Agata (entrance Via Mazzini 46), which though entirely rebuilt, with its campanile, in the later part of the fifteenth century is since the "restoration" of 1893 interesting, if at all, because the church dates originally from the fifth century. It would seem indeed that it was founded in the time of the Augusta, and to this the walls of part of the nave bear witness, but it was continued later perhaps by the archbishop Exuperantius (_c_. 470) whose monogram appears upon the second column to the left in the nave, and finally completed or in part rebuilt in the sixth century. In the fifteenth century (1476-94), the church was largely rebuilt again, but its tribune with its great mosaic remained till 1688 when it fell. In the sixth century it would seem to have had an atrium or narthex. Its main interest for us to-day lies in the beauty of its columns of bigio antico, cipollino, porphyry, granite, and other marbles belonging to the original church, with their Roman and Byzantine capitals. Also to the right of the nave we see a curious _ambone_ hollowed out of a fragment of a gigantic column of Greek marble. The altar, too, is formed from an ancient sarcophagus which is said to hold the dust of the two archbishops, Sergius, with whom the pope had so much trouble, and Agnellus. According to Agnellus the chronicler there was a portrait of the archbishop S. John Angeloptes in the apse, but this like the great mosaic of the tribune is gone. It was here, however, that S. John got that strange surname of his--Angeloptes. He and his predecessor S. Peter Chrysologus with S. Maximian and Sergius were the great archbishops of this great see. We hear that the emperor Valentinian III., according to Agnellus--but we should place the bishopric of S. John Angeloptes 477-494--"was so much affected by the preaching of this holy man that he took off his imperial crown and humbly on his knees begged his blessing.... Not long after he gave him fourteen cities with their churches to be governed by him _Archieratica potestate_. And even to this day (ninth century), these fourteen cities with their bishops are subject to the church of Ravenna.[1] This bishop first received from the emperor a _Pallium_ of white wool, just such as it is the custom for the pope to wear over the _Duplum_; and he and his successors have used such a vestment even to the present day."

[Footnote 1: The Archbishop of Ravenna at the present day has seven suffragans, Bertinoro, Cervia, Cesena, Comacchio, Forli, Rimini, Sarsina. It is hard to decide whether this man or Peter Chrysologus was the first archbishop of Ravenna.]

This passage of Agnellus is important, but does not seem, on examination, to have any real bearing upon the question of the dependence of the See of Ravenna upon Rome. The Pallium was originally an imperial gift to the popes, probably in the fourth century. And the fact that it is the emperor and not the pope who bestowes it upon the archbishop of Ravenna in the fifth century, if it be true, can have no meaning at all in the question of papal supremacy.

Agnellus, whom I have quoted, goes on to tell us of that miracle which gave S. John, archbishop of Ravenna, his surname of Angeloptes or Angel-seer. "When the said John," he tells us, "was singing Mass in the Basilica of S. Agata and had accomplished all things according to the pontifical rite, after the reading of the Gospel, after the Protestation (? the Credo), the catechumens to whom it was given to see saw marvellous things. For when that most blessed man began the Canon, and made the sign of the Cross over the sacrifice, suddenly an angel from heaven came and stood on the other side of the altar in sight of the bishop. And when after finishing the consecration he had received the Body of the Lord, the assisting deacon who wished to fulfil his ministry could not see the chalice which he had to hand to him. Suddenly he was moved aside by the angel who offered the holy chalice to the bishop in his place. Then all the priests and people began to shake and to tremble beholding the holy chalice self-moved, inclined to the bishop's mouth, and again lifted into the air, and laid upon the holy altar. A strange thrill passed through the waiting multitude. Some said: 'The deacon is unworthy;' others affirmed, 'Not so, but it is a heavenly visitation.' And so long did the angel stand by the holy man until all the solemnities of the Mass were ended."

Soon after this strange miracle S. John Angeloptes died and was buried in the basilica of S. Agata behind the altar in the place where he saw the angel standing.

Nothing seems to remain of his tomb or his grave; but the church is full of curious fragments, broken pillars, bits of mosaic, ancient marble panels, beautifully carved, and more than one old sarcophagus. Somewhere there no doubt the dust of S. John Angeloptes awaits the resurrection.

From S. Agata we pass to S. Francesco. This church was founded by S. Peter Chrysologus (429-_c_. 449) and was completed by S. Peter Chrysologus' successor, the archbishop S. Neon (_c_. 459). Its first title would seem to have been that of S. Peter Major; we hear, too, that it was called SS. Peter and Paul, and Agnellus in his life of S. Neon calls the church Basilica Apostolorum. The region of the city in which it stands would seem to have borne also the name _Regio Aposto lorum_, though whether it got the name from the church or the church from it is impossible to decide.[1]

[Footnote 1: The Franciscans conventuals would seem to have possessed the church from 1261 to 1810.]

Unhappily the church has been entirely rebuilt in the eighteenth century, and our interest in it is confined for the most part to the tower, the crypt, the twenty-two columns of Greek marble which uphold the nave, two of which are signed 'P. E.' and four others 'E. V. G.,' and the tombs. The tall square tower dates, perhaps, from the tenth century, the crypt from the ninth, but the columns are of the fifth century. Perhaps the oldest thing in the church is the sarcophagus on the right of the main door which has on its front Pagan sculptures and on its sides Christian. Close to the holy water stoup is a very lovely sarcophagus of the fourth century with reliefs of Our Lord and eight Apostles. The ribs of the cover have as finials the heads of lions; altogether this is a very splendid and noble tomb. In the last chapel upon the right we find the great sarcophagus, still used as an altar, of S. Liberius, bishop of Ravenna (_c_. 375), "a great man, a never-failing fountain of charity; who brought much honour to the church," according to Agnellus. The sarcophagus dates from the end of the fourth century and is sculptured in high relief.

I shall return to S. Francesco when I consider Mediaeval Ravenna.[2] At present I would direct the reader's attention to S. Giovanni Evangelista.

[Footnote 2: See _infra_, p. 245 _et seq_.]

This church was originally founded by Galla Placidia herself, in fulfilment of a vow made by her to S. John Evangelist, when, on her way from Constantinople to Ravenna, she was in danger of shipwreck.[3] Agnellus tells us that of old the church bore an inscription to this effect, and he gives it to us: _Sancto ac Beatissimo Apostolo Johanni Evangelistae Galla Placidia Augusta cum filio suo Placidio Valentiniano Augusta et filia sua Justa Grata Honoria Augusta, Liberationis penculum marts votum solmentes_. The mosaic of the apse of old represented the incident. Unhappily the church was almost entirely rebuilt in 1747, only the tower of the eleventh century and the portico of the fourteenth being left as they had been. The beautiful fourteenth-century door, however, bears above it a relief of that time in which we see Our Lord, S. John Evangelist, Valentinian III., Galla Placidia with her soldiers and her confessor, S. Barbatian, with priests. Below this on either side of the arch of the doorway is a representation of the Annunciation and within the arch itself a relief which recounts the miracle which attended the consecration of the church. For the church of S. Giovanni Evangelista was not only founded in recompense for a miracle, but a miracle attended its consecration. It seems that when the church was to be consecrated no relic of S. John Evangelist was to be had. Therefore the Augusta and her confessor gave themselves a whole night to prayer, and suddenly there appeared to them S. John himself, vested like a bishop with a thurible in his hand, with which he incensed the church. Then when he came to the altar to incense it, and they would have venerated him, he suddenly vanished, only leaving in the hand of the Augusta one of his shoes. This legend, which is represented in relief in the fourteenth-century doorway of S. Giovanni Evangelista, is also the subject of a picture by Rondinelli of Ravenna in the Brera at Milan.

[Footnote 3: See _supra_, p. 41.]

The church has, as I have said, been ruined by the rebuilding of 1747; but there still remain the twenty-four columns of bigio antico with their Roman capitals, which upheld the old basilica, and in the crypt is the ancient high altar of the fifth century. Something, too, of the old church would seem to remain in the much repaired walls of the apse without.

The frescoes by Giotto, sadly repainted, in the fourth chapel on the left, must be noted. They represent the four Evangelists with their symbols over them, and the four Latin fathers of the Church, S. Jerome, S. Ambrose, S. Austin, and S. Gregory. Certain fragments of a thirteenth-century mosaic pavement are to be seen in the chapel of S. Bartholomew, which is itself perhaps the oldest part of the church.

We turn now to the church of S. Giovanni Battista which was founded by a certain Baduarius, according to Agnellus, and consecrated by S. Peter Chrysologus. It is possible that Baduarius was the mere builder, and that he built by order of Galla Placidia. Nothing, however, is left of the old church, which was entirely rebuilt in 1683, except the apse as it is seen from the outside, the round campanile in its first story and the beautiful columns sixteen in number, four of bigio antico, two of pavonazzetto, one of cipollino, and the rest of greco venato, according to Dr. Ricci.

* * * * *

There remains to be considered what is, when all is said, I suppose the noblest monument of the fifth century left to us in Italy or in Europe--the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia.

Agnellus tells us that the Augusta built close to her palace a great church in the shape of a Latin cross. This she dedicated in honour of the Holy Cross which it will be remembered her predecessor S. Helena had discovered in Jerusalem. Of this church, though it has long since disappeared--the "western" part of it having been destroyed in 1602 and what remained restored out of all recognition in 1716--we know a good deal. According to Agnellus it was covered with most precious stones (? marbles) and apparently with mosaics and was full of splendid ornaments. It had, too, a great narthex, and at the end of this Galla Placidia presently built a cruciform oratory for her own mausoleum, where she was to lie between her brother Honorius and her son Valentinian.

The Mausoleum of Galla Placidia is the oldest complete building left to us in Ravenna, for it dates from well within the first half of the fifth century, whereas the baptistery, altered and transformed as it was by S. Neon, is as we see it a work of the first years of the second half of that century. Simple as it is, without, a cruciform building of plain brick, within it is so sumptuously and splendidly adorned that not an inch anywhere remains that is not encrusted with mosaic or precious marbles. These mosaics were, before their radical "restoration," perhaps finer and more classical than those of the baptistery. It might seem, indeed, that they were perhaps the finest and subtlest work done in the Roman realistic tradition, nor was there perhaps anywhere to be found so noble a representation of the Good Shepherd as that which adorned this great monument. It is, however, impossible to speak with any confidence of what we see there now, for all has been restored again and again, and is now little better than a _rifacimento_ of our own time, a copy, faithful perhaps, but still a copy, of the work of the fifth century.

Nevertheless, the impression of the whole is very splendid and solemn. The roofs and dome are covered with mosaics of a wonderful and indescribable night blue, powdered with stars. In the cupola is a cross and at the four angles are set the symbols of the four Evangelists, glorious heraldic figures.

Above the door we see Christ the Good Shepherd, youthful, classic in form and repose, very noble and Roman, seated on a rock in a broken hilly landscape, a cross in His left hand, caressing His sheep with His right. This figure even after "restoration" gives us more than a glimpse of what it once was. Nowhere had Christian art produced so majestic a representation of its Lord; nor had the subject of the Good Shepherd been anywhere more splendidly treated than here.

Over the great sarcophagus, opposite the entrance, we see a very different scene. Here is no longer a youthful Christ, with the hair and the noble aspect of Apollo, but a bearded and majestic figure in the fullness of manhood, His eyes full of anger, His draperies flying about Him, moving swiftly, the cross on His shoulders, in His left hand an heretical, probably Arian, book which he is about to cast into the furnace in the midst. Upon the extreme left is a case or cupboard in which we see the books of the four Gospels. In the other lunettes we see very gorgeous decorative work of arabesques and stags at a fountain and two doves drinking from a vase. Above in the spandrils of the arches are figures of apostles or saints. Nothing in the world is more solemnly gorgeous in effect than this beautiful rich interior. The pavement is composed of fragments of the same precious marbles as those which line the lower parts of the walls.

Under the mosaic of the burning of the heretical books we see the mighty sarcophagus of plain Greek marble which once held the body of the Augusta. This, of old, was richly adorned with carved marbles and perhaps with silver or mosaic; and we know that in the fourteenth century certainly it was possible to see within the figure of a woman richly dressed seated in a chair of cedar and this was believed to be the mummy of the Augusta Galla Placidia. However, we hear nothing of it before the fourteenth century, and Dr. Ricci suggests that it may have been an imposture of about that time. It is possible, but perhaps unlikely, for the Augusta was not a saint, and what reason could men have in the thirteenth century, when the very meaning of the empire was about to be forgotten, for such an imposture? However this may be, the figure remained there seated in its chair during the fourteenth, fifteenth, and the greater part of the sixteenth centuries. And indeed, it might have been there still but that in 1577 some children, curious about it and anxious to see a thing so wonderful, thrust a lighted taper into the tomb through one of the holes in the marble, when mummy, vestments, chair and all were consumed, and in a moment nothing remained but a handful of dust.

The sarcophagi under the arches on either side, according to various authorities, hold the dust of the emperor Honorius, the brother of the Augusta, and of Constantius her husband, or of the emperor Valentinian III. her son. It is impossible to decide at this late day exactly who does and who does not lie in these great Christian tombs.

The Mausoleum of the Augusta was long known, though not from its origin, as the sanctuary of SS. Nazaro e Celso. When it was so dedicated I am ignorant, but it was not in the time of the Augusta. Then, in the fifteenth century, when so much was remembered and so much more was forgotten, it bore the title of SS. Gervasio e Protasio, and this name remained to it till the seventeenth century, when the old title was revived. To-day although it retains its name of SS. Nazaro and Celso, it is more rightly and universally known as the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia.

XII

THE ARIAN CHURCHES OF THE SIXTH CENTURY

THE PALACE OF THEODORIC, S. APOLLINARE NUOVO, S. SPIRITO, S. MARIA IN COSMEDIN, THE MAUSOLEUM OF THEODORIC

It was, as we have seen, upon March 5, 493, that Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, entered Ravenna as the representative of the emperor at Constantinople. One of his first acts seems to have been the erection of a palace designed for his habitation and that of his successors. Why this should have been so we do not know. It might seem more reasonable to find the Gothic king taking possession of the imperial palace, close to which the Augusta Galla Placidia had erected the church of S. Croce and her tomb. Perhaps this had been destroyed in the revolution or series of revolutions in which the empire in the West had fallen, perhaps it had been ruined in the Gothic siege which endured for some three years. Whatever had befallen it, it was not occupied, restored, or rebuilt by Theodoric. He chose a situation upon the other side of the city and there he built a new palace and beside it a great Arian church, for both he and his Goths were of that sect. We call the church to-day S. Apollinare Nuovo.

The palace, of which nothing actually remains to us, though certain additions made to it during the exarchate are still standing, was, according to the various chroniclers whose works remain to us, surrounded by porticoes, such as Theodoric built in many places, and was carved with precious marbles and mosaics. It was of considerable size, set in the midst of a park or gardens. Something of what it was we may gather from the mosaics of S. Apollinare Nuovo in which it is conventionally represented. It came to owe much to Amalasuntha who lived there during her brief reign, and more to the exarchs who made it their official residence.

In 751 when Ravenna fell into the hands of the Lombards Aistulf established himself there, but it might seem that the place had suffered grievously in the wars, and it was probably little more than a mighty ruin when, in 784, Charlemagne obtained permission from the pope to strip it of its marbles and its ornaments and to carry them off to Aix-la-Chapelle. Among these was an equestrian statue in gilded bronze, according to Agnellus a portrait of the great Gothic king, but as Dr Ricci suggests a statue of the Emperor Zeno. This too in the time of Leo III. Charlemagne carried away. According to the same authority the back of the palace was not then very far from the sea, and this was so even in 1098. Nothing I think can give us a better idea of the change that has come over the _contado_ of Ravenna than an examination of its situation to-day, more than four miles from the sea coast.

The only memorial we have left to us _in situ_ of that palace of the Gothic king is a half-ruined building, really a mere facade with round-arched blind arcades and a central niche in the upper story, a colonnade in two stories, and the bases of two round towers with a vast debris of ruined foundations, walls, and brickwork, scarcely anything of which, in so far as it may be said to be still standing, would seem to have been a part of the palace Theodoric built. Indeed the ruined facade would seem to belong to a guard house built in the time of the exarchs in the seventh or eighth century. If we seek then for some memory of Theodoric in this place we shall be disappointed.

Far otherwise is it with the great church, the noblest in Ravenna, of S. Apollinare Nuovo. This was built about the same time as the palace, in the first twenty years of the sixth century, as the Arian cathedral by the Gothic king. It was the chief temple in Ravenna of that heresy, and it remained in Arian hands till with the re-establishment of the imperial power in Italy it was consecrated, in 560, for Catholic use by the archbishop S. Agnellus. It consists of a basilica divided into three naves by twenty-four columns of Greek marble with Romano-Byzantine capitals. Of old it had an atrium, but this was removed in the sixteenth century, as was the ancient apse in the eighteenth. The original apse, however, was ruined in an earthquake, as Agnellus tells in his life of S. Agnellus, in the sixth century, and of the atrium only a single column remains _in situ_ before the church. The campanile, a noble great round tower, dates from the ninth century for the most part, its base is, however, new. The portico before the church is a work of the sixteenth century, as is the facade, which nevertheless contains certain ancient marbles, among which are two inscribed stones, one of the fourth century and the other of the eleventh.

When Theodoric built this great and glorious church he dedicated it to Jesus Christ. It seems to have been dedicated in honour of S. Martin in 560 by the archbishop S. Agnellus who consecrated it for Catholic worship, and finally in the middle of the ninth century to have been given the title of S. Apollinare by the archbishop John, who asserted that he had brought hither the relics of the first archbishop of the see from S. Apollinare in Classe when that church was threatened by the Saracens.

The oldest name by which the church was generally known, however, is that of _Coelum Aureum_. Agnellus in his life of the archbishop S. Agnellus says, speaking of the Catholic consecration of the church, "Then the most blessed Agnellus the bishop reconciled within this city the church of S. Martin Confessor, which Theodoric the king founded, and which was called _Coelum Aureum_...." And he goes on to say that it was found from an inscription that "King Theodoric made this church from its foundations in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ."[1] It got the name of _Coelum Aureum_ perhaps from its glorious roof of gold. This, however, was destroyed in 1611.

[Footnote 1: Cf. also Agnellus, _Liber Pontificalis_, Vita Theodori, cap. n.]

The church has indeed suffered very much in the course of the fourteen hundred years of its existence, and yet in many ways it is the best preserved church in Ravenna. In the sixteenth century, for instance, it was fast sinking into ruin; the floor of the church and the bases of the columns were then more than a metre and a half beneath the level of the soil, and it was decided that something must be done if the building was to be saved. In 1514 this work was undertaken; the columns were raised and the arches cut and thus the church and its great mosaics were preserved. It is, however, still sinking; the new pavement of the sixteenth century has disappeared, and that of 1873 which was brought from the suppressed church of S. Niccolo covers the bases of the columns.

If S. Apollinare Nuovo had been allowed to fall, nothing that we possess in the world would have compensated us for its loss. For not only have we here a beautiful interior very largely of the sixth century, but the great mosaics of the nave which cover the walls above the arcade under the windows are, I suppose, at once the largest and the most remarkable works of that time which ever existed. They are also of an extraordinary and exceptional beauty. They represent upon both sides, through the whole length of the nave, as it were two long processions of saints. Upon the Epistle side are the martyrs issuing out of the city of Ravenna to lay their crowns at the feet of Our Lord on His throne, guarded by four angels. Upon the Gospel side are the virgins headed by the three kings, who offer gifts to Our Lord in his Mother's arms enthroned between four angels. There is nothing in Christendom to compare with these mosaics. They are unique and, as I like to think, in their wonderful significance are the key to a mystery that has for long remained unsolved. For these long processions of saints, representing that great crowd of witnesses of which S. Paul speaks, stand there above the arcade and under the clerestory where in a Gothic church the triforium is set. But the triforium is the one inexplicable and seemingly useless feature of a Gothic building. It seems to us, in our ignorance of the mind of the Middle Age, of what it took for granted, to be there simply for the sake of beauty, to have no use at all. But what if this church in Ravenna, the work indeed of a very different school and time, but springing out of the same spiritual tradition, should hold the key? What if the triforium of a Gothic church should have been built as it were for a great crowd of witnesses--the invisible witnesses of the Everlasting Sacrifice, the sacrifice of Calvary, the sacrifice of the Mass? It is not only in the presence of the living, devout or half indifferent, that that great sacrifice is offered through the world, yesterday, to-day, and for ever, but be sure in the midst of the chivalry of heaven, a multitude that no man can number, none the less real because invisible, among whom one day we too are to be numbered. Not for the living only, but for the whole Church men offer that sacrifice _pro redemptione animarum suarum, pro spe salutis et incolumitatis suae. Memento etiam Domine famulorum famularumque tuarum qui nos praecesserunt cum signo fidei et dormiunt in somno pacis_.... Here in S. Apollinare at any rate for ever they await the renewal of that moment.

Those marvellous figures that appear in ghostly procession upon the walls of S. Apollinare here in Ravenna are really indescribable, they must be seen if the lovely significance of their beauty is to be understood. What can one say of them?

Upon the Epistle side we see as it were a procession of twenty-five figures all in white with palms in the right hands and crowns in their left. They are the martyrs SS. Clement, Sixtus, Laurence, Cyprian, Paul, Vitalis, Gervasius, Protasius, Hippolytus, Cornelius, Cassianus, John, Ursinus, Namor, Felix, Apollinaris, Demetrius, Polycarp, Vincent, Pancras, Chrysogonus, Protus, Jovenius, and Sabinus, and their names are written in a long line over them; each is aureoled, and each upon his white robe bears a letter the significance of which is hidden from us. This procession comes out of the city of Ravenna which is magnificently represented, occupying indeed a fifth of the whole length of the mosaic.

In the foreground is the palace of Theodoric, the whole facade of it, the triple arched peristyle in the midst flanked on either side by two triple arched loggias, each having a second story of five arches. In the spandrils of the arches are figures of Victories, and of old in the tympanum we might have seen Theodoric on horseback. Within, the arches are hung with curtains. On the extreme right is the great gate of the palace in the wall of the city, flanked on either side by towers. In the lunette over the gateway we see three small figures of Christ with the cross between two Apostles, and within the gate, I think, a great figure, seated. Over the facade of the palace we look into the city and see four churches, which Dr. Ricci suggests may be, on the right, this very church with its baptistery, now destroyed, together with the church of S. Teodoro (now S. Spirito) and the Arian baptistery: they are altogether Byzantine in type. Out of this city come the martyrs; there are twenty-five of them all in white, as I have said, and they are led by S. Martin Confessor, who bears of course no palm, is robed in purple, and bears his crown in both his hands. He leads the procession along a way strewn with flowers to the throne where Christ sits guarded by four angels.

Above this great scene, between the windows, above each of which there is an ornamental mosaic, we see sixteen figures of Prophets or perhaps Fathers. Over these are twenty-seven compartments each filled with a mosaic. Those over the heads of the prophets are, except in the case of him who stands, at each end, last but one, filled with a sort of recessed throne in mosaic, over which in each case are set two doors. But the eleven compartments over the windows and the two over the two figures last but one at either end are filled with thirteen scenes from the New Testament, beginning on the left as follows: (1) The Last Supper, (2) The Agony in the Garden, (3) The Kiss of Judas, (4) Christ taken, (5) Christ before the High Priest, (6) Christ before Herod, (7) The Denial of Peter, (8) Judas trying to restore the money to the priests, (9) Christ before Pilate, (10) The Via Crucis, (n) The Maries at the Sepulchre, (12) The way to Emmaus, (13) The Incredulity of S. Thomas.

Turning now to the Gospel side of the church, we find a similar procession over the arcade, but of twenty-one virgin martyrs bearing palms and crowns richly dressed with precious ornaments and jewels. They bear the following names: SS. Pelagia, Agatha, Eulalia, Cecilia, Lucia, Crispina, Valeria, Vincentia, Agnes with her lamb, Perpetua, Felicitas, Justina, Anastasia, Daria, Paulina, Victoria, Anatolia, Christina, Savona, Eugenia. They issue out of the towered gate of the Castello of Classis, whose wall stretches before us to the great sea gate through which we look upon the port with three ships on the water, one of which is sailing in or out. Within the castello over the wall of it we see buildings of a distinctly Roman type.

The procession of virgins which issues forth from this castello is led by S Eufemia, who does not bear a palm, but carries her crown in her two hands. Before her go the three Magi, Balthassar, Melchior, and Caspar, bearing their gold, frankincense, and myrrh under the palms of the long way, guided by the star to where Madonna sits enthroned with her little Son between four angels.

Above between the windows, as on the Epistle side, are sixteen figures in mosaic of the Prophets or Fathers; and over them again, as before, are thirteen scenes from the life of Our Lord: (1) The Healing of the cripple at Capernaum, (2) The Herd of Swine, (3) The Healing of the paralytic who was let down in a bed to Jesus, (4) The Parable of the sheep and the goats, (5) The Widow's mite, (6) The Pharisee and the Publican, (7) The Raising of Lazarus, (8) The Woman of Samaria at the well, (9) The Healing of the woman with an issue of blood, (10) The Healing of the two blind men, (11) The Miraculous draught of fishes, (12) The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes, (13) The Water turned into Wine.

And what are we to say of these marvellous things? This first of all, that for the most part they are not of the time of Theodoric, but rather of that S. Agnellus who consecrated the church for Catholic use. This is not to deny that there were always in the church mosaics occupying the place which these we see fill; on the contrary. But the processions of the martyrs and of the virgins with the three Magi are certainly Catholic works, and of the middle or end of the sixth century; they obviously took the place of certain mosaics perhaps full of Arian doctrines which then stood there. On the other hand, the castello of Classis, the Christ enthroned with angels, the Virgin enthroned with angels, the Prophets or Fathers, and the scenes of Our Lord's life and teaching, above them, are of Theodoric's time. The city of Ravenna I am perhaps alone in attributing to the later period. Dr. Ricci--and he is of course an almost infallible authority--attributes it to the time of Theodoric. It does not seem to me to be so. All this, however, must be understood to refer to such parts of these mosaics as have not suffered restoration, which, however, has not often been as drastic as that which has befallen the figures of the Magi; of which the upper parts are new, as are the figures of the two outer angels.

We have here then under our eyes the two schools of mosaics, that of Rome and that of Constantinople. It is easy to see that the Roman work, the original work that is, is more classical and realistic than the rich and glorious figures of the processions; but it is not decoratively so successful. Indeed I know of nothing anywhere that is more artistically, dramatically, and as it were liturgically satisfying than these long processions on either side of S. Apollinare Nuovo.

Little else remains in the church worth notice except an ancient ambo under the arcade in the nave and the chapel of the Relics at the top of the left aisle. This was largely built of ancient fragments in the sixteenth century. We see there two beautiful alabaster columns with capitals of serpentine with two small columns of verde antico also with ancient capitals. The screen is Byzantine. The walls are ornamented with bas-reliefs and paintings, but above all these we see there a marvellous portrait in mosaic of the emperor Justinian as an old man, unhappily restored in 1863. The altar is ancient and above it is a marble coffer with Renaissance ornaments, upheld by four columns of porphyry, having two Byzantine and two Roman capitals. On the Epistle side of the altar here is a marble chair--a Roman thing.

From that splendid and well-preserved church we pass to that of the Spirito Santo. Unhappily this once glorious building has suffered as much as any church left to us in Ravenna, for it was almost entirely rebuilt in 1543 when the portico we see was added to it, and in 1627 was restored and adorned, as it was in 1854 and 1896. That it was founded and built by the Goths and reconciled later for Catholic use appears in Agnellus' life of the archbishop S. Agnellus, where we read that of old the Arian Episcopio stood near by, together with a bath and a _monastero_ of S. Apollinare. What the _monastero_ may have been we do not know, but the bath was perhaps the Arian baptistery known as S. Maria in Cosmedin.

The church of the Spirito Santo was not in Arian times known under that dedication, but was called of S. Theodore. It owes the pleasing portico it now possesses, as I have said, to the sixteenth century, but that portico is itself largely constructed of old materials, being upheld by eight antique columns, of which six are of Greek marble. These originally supported the baldacchino over the high altar. Within, the church is divided into three naves by fourteen columns, thirteen of which are of bigio antico, and the other, the last on the Epistle side towards the altar, of a rare and curious marble known as verde sanguigno. The capitals are of Theodoric's time, late Roman work.

Very little remains in the church that is of any interest to us. In the sacristy, however, we may see in the present lavabo some fragments of the ancient ciborio. And in the nave at the western end on the Gospel side is an ancient sarcophagus of Greek marble which was carved in the Renaissance and in the seventeenth century became the sepulchre of one of the Pasolini family. In the first chapel on this side of the church is the ancient _ambone_ removed from the nave in the sixteenth century, and in the second are two columns of pavonazzetto marble.

Something better is to be had in the utterly desolate baptistery close by known as S. Maria in Cosmedin. This was originally, as we may think, the ancient bath of which Agnellus speaks, and it was converted into a baptistery by the Arians, and later consecrated for Catholic uses under the title of S. Maria in Cosmedin and used as an oratory. It is an octagonal building whose walls support a cupola which is covered with mosaics in circles like that of the original baptistery of the city. In the midst we see Christ almost a youth standing naked in Jordan immersed to his waist. Upon His left, S. John stands upon a rock, his staff in his left hand, while his right rests upon the head of Our Lord. Opposite to him sits enthroned the old god of Jordan, a reed in his hand, listening, perhaps, to the words of the Father: "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." Over Christ's head the Dove is displayed in the golden heaven.

About the central mosaic is set a band of palm leaves, while on the outer circle we see the twelve Apostles very much like the martyrs of S. Apollinare standing dressed in white, their crowns in their hands between palms. Only S. Peter and another, perhaps S. John or S. Paul, do not bear crowns, but S. Peter his keys and the other a book. Between them is set a throne on which stands a jewelled cross.

It is exceedingly difficult to say when these mosaics were executed, for they have been so entirely restored that very little of the original work is left to us. They are certainly very early for work of the Catholic restoration; and yet they remind one strongly of the processions of S. Apollinare Nuovo. If as a whole the design of these mosaics is of the time of the archbishop S. Agnellus, it is curious that the subject of the Baptism should have been used for a church which by his act had ceased to be a baptistery. The most reasonable hypothesis would seem to be that the design and choice of subject is in the main due to the Arians; that the central disc remains late work of their time in so far as it is original at all. While the apostles may be in the main the work of the Catholic restoration.

Theodoric was, as these works serve to show, a great builder of churches in his capital. Not all of them have remained to our day. Dr. Ricci has thought that we see something of one of them in the Portico Antico of the Piazza Maggiore where there are eight columns of granite upon the left of the Palazzo del Comune with late Roman capitals, four of which have the monogram of the Gothic king. The church of S. Andrea,[1] according to Dr Ricci, stood by the city wall, near where the Venetians in the fifteenth century built their Rocca, destroying the church to make room for it. Dr. Ricci suggests that when they began to construct the Portico of the Piazza they used, as indeed they more than any other people were wont to do, the material of the demolished church in their new building and among it these great columns with their Roman capitals and strange monograms.

[Footnote 1: S. Andrea was, according to Rasponi, _op. cit. ut supra_, the same as the chapel of the Arcivescovado called S, Pier Crisologo.]

But astonishing though these churches are which Theodoric built by the art and hands of the Italians during the generation of his rule in Ravenna, they would not impress us with the strength and importance of his personality and government, as undoubtedly they do, if we had not in his mausoleum perhaps the most impressive late Roman building left to us practically intact in all Italy, a thing which, quite as much as the mightier tomb of Hadrian, assures us of the enormous vitality of Roman civilisation, its weight, endurance, and unfailing continuance through every sort of disaster and misgovernment.

This mighty monument is situated upon the north-east of the city, perhaps upon the old Roman road the Via Popilia. That it was built by Theodoric himself might seem certain. For though it has been said that it was erected by Amalasuntha the Anonymus Valesii tells us that Theodoric built it before he died. "While yet he lived he made a monument of squared stone, a work of marvellous greatness, covered with a single stone." It is perhaps of little consequence to whom we owe this mighty tomb, for it is absolutely, and in any case, Roman work, and might seem to have been modelled upon the far larger and more tremendous mausoleum of Hadrian.[1]

[Footnote 1: Choisy points out that the mausoleum of Theodoric has stylistic affinities with Syrian work, and Strzygowski, who reminds us that several bishops of Ravenna were Syrians, thinks that Ravenna in much derived from Syria especially from Antioch.]

The mausoleum is built in two stories of block after block of hewn and squared stone. The lower of the two stories is decagonal and has in every side a vast archway or niche, one of which forms the gateway. Within we find a huge cruciform chamber lighted by six square openings. The upper story, now reached by two stairways, built with ancient materials in 1774, is circular, having about it eighteen blind arches and over it a vast circular roof hewn out of a single block of Istrian stone that weighs, it is said, two hundred tons. It may be that this upper story, smaller as it is than the lower, was of old surrounded by a colonnade, and it may be that the twelve projections upon the vast monolith of the roof once upheld statutes of the twelve Apostles. We do not know.[1]

[Footnote 1: On the other hand, these projections are thought by many to have been used as rings for the ropes by which the roof was hauled up an inclined bank of earth into place They each bear the name of an Apostle, and are similar to the small abutting arches round the dome of S. Sophia at Salonica]