So many mosaics - Ravenna

I had a few extra days during the basketball championships to take a longer trip so I headed north to Ravenna and Bologna.  I really wanted to see the famous Byzantine mosaics of Ravenna and Bologna was the city where I needed to change trains so I stopped there for a couple nights as well.  I knew nothing about Bologna other than what I'd heard in the news about leaning towers.

We talk about the Byzantines empire as if it were separate from the Romans, but they saw themselves as the continuation of the Roman Empire after Constantine moved the capital east from Rome to Constantinople in the 4th century.  With Constantine's acceptance of Christianity, the Eastern Romans/Byzantines adopted it as their official religion.  Greek language dominated as Latin use diminished with the fall of Western Rome in the 5th century.  With time the Eastern Empire changed as you would expect.  Territory was lost and regained and borders shifted while Constantinople remained a large and important city for all of Europe until the city was defeated by crusaders in 1204.  The empire was divided, but the city recovered and was a regional power until the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453.  During the centuries of upheaval parts of the Italian peninsula, particularly Venice and the more distant island of Sicily, were repeatedly lost and restored to the empire, but maintained a cultural connection.  While in control of western Italy, emperors built churches and palaces.  When the empire lost control of the peninsula, refugees, including many artists, artisans, and scholars came from Constantinople and other parts of the empire to escape the destruction.  The artistic traditions continued on after the fall of the empire in the surviving Eastern Orthodox church.

I took a walking tour of Ravenna and then went back to see some of my favorites again to spend more time looking and even sketching a bit. Each site is magnificent and tells a lot about the history and artistry of the time and place.  

From the outside, the chapel of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo (not the same as San Appolinare in Classe) was built in the first quarter of the 6th century and is pretty nondescript, with a plane looking brick church and a matching round bell tower.  The building was originally the chapel for the palace of Theodoric the Great next door.  As a child he had been held hostage in Constantinople to satisfy the terms of a treaty and through his education there gained an appreciation for the culture of his then captors.  Later, Theodoric was the Ostrogothic king of Italy.  Even though king of the Ostrogoths, he was still subservient to Constantinople.  His Arian Christian beliefs were heretical to the Orthodox Christian church in Constantinople and would be a source of political tension.  It is much different inside.  The chapel walls have stunning mosaics. They are partially original, although there were notable changes in 561 when the church was renovated and rededicated to the anti-Arian St. Martin. By this time the chapel was an Orthodox church.  The changes in the mosaics were probably for both religious and political reasons.  The processions of the martyrs on either side are from this renovation.  The palace and scene from Classe were also changed.  We don't really know what the originals looked like exactly.  We do know that after Theodoric's death, images of him and his family were removed.  You can see traces of the original mosaics in disembodied hands in front of the palace pillars.  What is now a portrait of Justinian may have originally been Theodoric.  Sadly, the apse mosaics were removed during 16th century renovations and replaced with dark and dull Baroque decorations.  

Smart History Video

Hands from the time of Theodoric visible in front of two pillars

Dante Alighieri has a special connection to Ravenna.  Modern street artists honor him with their work around the city.  It is believed that he completed his Divine Comedy while staying in the city.  There is also a tomb where his remains are (probably? possibly?) interred.  For centuries Florence and Ravenna fought over his remains, so much so that they were lost or hidden between the 16th and 18th centuries.  Are the remains in the chapel dedicated to Dante his?  I don't know and I'm not sure that it is really that important.

The mosaics of San Vitale are magnificent and some of the best known in the city.  In addition to the mosaics there are so many details that are incredible, alabaster windows, intricately carved capitals on the columns, and a labyrinth in the center of the octagonal floor.  The interior was decorated shortly after the Ostrogoths were expelled from Italy and the area was reclaimed by the Eastern Roman/Byzantine emperor, Justinian, in about 553.  The mosaics in the main chapel tell stories of offering and sacrifice by Abel, Melchizedek, Moses, Abraham, and others.  Emperor Justinian and Empress Theodora are also shown with their courtiers offering the sacrifice of the Eucharist to Jesus who is at the center of the apse.  The whole thing is so detailed and so beautiful.  I went back a second time to have more time to look closely and to study the mosaics by sketching them.

Labyrinth

Apse - note the beardless Jesus

Justinian with soldiers, courtiers, and priests

Theodora with courtiers

Smart History - San Vitale

Note the bearded Jesus at the top of the arch

My sketch on yellow because of all the gold

The vibrant colors and all of the gold are quite impressive even centuries later.  It is no wonder that Gustav Klimt was inspired by these mosaics to incorporate gold and geometric forms into his work.

Behind the Basilica of San Vitale is the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia.  Galla Placidia was the daughter of Theodosius, the last emperor to rule the entire Roman empire, and his wife Galla.  When the empire split, her father ruled the East from Constantinople and her brother ruled the West.  She was married off to a king of the Visigoths in the West.  After his death she married Constantius III, eventually ruling the Western empire as regent until her son came of age.  

The mausoleum, built after 425, is fairly small, with an interior covered in colorful marble and more spectacular mosaics.  It is built of recycled Roman bricks and is one of the oldest buildings in Ravenna.

An image of Christ as the Good Shepard is over the entrance.  It quite interesting to compare the style to the classical mosaics and the Byzantine mosaics.  You can see the connections between the two and the things that make it uniquely early Christian.  The images are much more natural than the later Byzantine style in San Vitale, but not as much as the Classical Roman work.  The gold tesserae mark it as newer than the classical works.  The beardless Jesus as a shepherd is a common Early Christian image.  I compared it to the mosaics of Santa Pudenziana from a similar time, about 415.

Stars in the center ceiling and stylized flowers in the arch.

Smart History - Mausoleum of Galla Placidia

The mosaic tour I took also included the Neonian, or Orthodox, baptistry.  Not to be confused with the Arian baptistry which I learned about later, after I left the city.  I wish I had been able to see both.  They are somewhat similar, but there are definitely two separate buildings.  The Neonian baptistry was built adjacent to the Domus on the foundations of a Roman bath during the late 4th and early 5th centuries, about half a century before the Arian baptistry was built by Theodoric.  It was refinished in the late 5th century by Bishop Neone, who commissioned the mosaics inside.  It is one of the oldest buildings in Ravenna and one of very few surviving ancient baptistries in the world, and one of the best preserved.  

Neonian baptistry

The mosaics are interesting.  The central scene is of Christ's baptism by John.  The grey bearded figure to the right is a personification of the River Jordan.  This type of figure is common in Roman art and sculpture.  It is usually an old bearded man reclining and holding a cornucopia of some sort.  You can tell which river it is by the objects in the cornucopia and surrounding the figure.  It also helps that this one is named.

How Christian baptism was performed anciently varied with time and place.  Water may have been poured over the person's head from the hands of a priest or deacon, a bowl or cup, or fountain, or they may have been completely submerged under water.  The area in the center of this baptistry could certainly have been filled with water and used for baptism by immersion.

We also visited the palace of the Archbishop which is now a museum.  I loved the stone and ivory carvings and of course more mosaics.

Details of an ivory throne from the Archbishop's palace.  (Throne of Maximius 6th century)

Christ as a Roman soldier

It is quite interesting to look at how Christ is depicted differently at different times.  Very early on in the catacombs of Rome Christ was depicted as a beardless shepherd.  Later depictions like the mosaic of Santa Pudenziana and San Vitale depict Christ like a judge and emperor.  Here in a little hallway on the way to the Archbishop's chapel, Christ is depicted as a soldier vanquishing a serpent and a lion, representing the heretical Arians.  This chapel was built in the Orthodox Episcopal palace during the time of Theodoric and is reported to be the only early Christian chapel of its era to survive intact. 

It is always interesting to see which motifs get adapted into the tourist merch.  Here in Ravenna there are countless glass and mosaic do-dads along with the expected post cards of the most famous images like the royal couple in San Vitale.  My personal favorites were the socks with the derpy ducks from the ceiling of the vestibule of to St Andrew's chapel.  There were also socks, umbrellas and little fabric pouches that adapted the floral-ish mosaic ceiling design from the mausoleum of Galla Placidia.  The socks and umbrella came home with me.

Our first stop on the mosaic tour was one of the more recent buildings we saw.  The original church of San Francesco was built in the mid 5th century, but little of this structure remains.  The highlight of the building is the 10th century crypt beneath the altar.  Because Ravenna is built on marshland, the church and crypt are sinking.  Rather than fight the rising water the crypt was allowed to flood and is now the home to goldfish.  It's beautiful   You can see the mosaics and coins on the floor and the bright orange and white goldfish through the clear water.

Next to San Vitale I found the National Museum of Ravenna.  It was delightful!  The collections were housed in an old Benedictine monastery.  Rooms branched off quiet cloisters.  The examples of intricate stone carving were impressive.  There were even a few more modern pieces among the ancient bits and a room with items from an 18th century pharmacy.

Ancient Greek bust

Hanging wire sculpture next to ancient Roman funeral stone

18th century pharmacy

Underneath a small rather nondescript church is an amazing series of Roman and Byzantine floor mosaics discovered in the 1990s and opened to the public in 2002.  It is called the Domus of the stone carpets.  I saw a sign on the street and followed it to this.  Glass walkways lead you around the floors so that you can get close and see the floors.  They aren't flat anymore, but roll and wave, after several centuries in place.  A highlight is the center panel of four dancing figures called the Geniuses of the Four Seasons.

The Geniuses of the Four Seasons

Something unexpected that I really enjoyed was the MAR, the Ravenna Art Museum.  A large section of the collection focuses on mosaic art, but modern.  I loved the exhibits that included the 20th century cartoons drawn by the artist and the mosaics made from them, usually by a different artisan.  It is truly a partnership.  

Mosaic and cartoon

Cartoon by Marc Chagall

The last church I visited in Ravenna was San Giovanni Evangelista.  It was originally built after 424 BC by Empress Gallia Placidia and remodeled and rebuilt several times. most recently after extensive damage from bombing in WWII.  The most interesting part of the church that survives are the medieval floor fragments from 1213 AD that now decorate the walls.  This series has been called the Bayeux tapestry in stone.  Some of the fragments depict the attack and siege of Constantinople during the fourth crusade.  They are simple and quite rustic, not as flashy as their older and more colorful and more realistic neighbors, but they still tell quite an interesting story. 

Crusaders from the 4th Crusade

San Giovanni Evangelista