Sometimes when you are traveling you have to admit that as much as you want to, you cannot see everything. You have to make choices. We both wanted to go to Urbino, the most historically significant town in The Marches, but we also wanted to see Ravenna, home to be oldest and best preserved Byzantine mosaics in the world. Urbino sounded fascinating in the guidebooks. But I had heard about Ravenna ever since I was a sophomore at the University of Michigan taking art history. John and I talked it over, and 1500 hundred year old mosaics won. After having a lovely breakfast at the Castello di Monterado, we took the car and drove 90 minutes north to Ravenna. We found a place to park near the train station, and following the suggestion in one of our guidebooks we rented two bicycles there. We first looked at Ravenna’s historic piazza. It may have been 600 hundred years old, but it was not that fascinating. We went off in search of much older stuff.
Our first stop was the Arian baptistry. Now, I will not get into too much detail about theological matters, but the Arians were people who more or less believed that Jesus was something just a little less than completely divine. The whole business in the Nicene Creed about “begotten not made” is a response to Arianism. But even after most of Christendom had rejected Arianism in the fourth century, the barbarian invaders who overran Italy embraced it, particularly Theodoric, the king of the Goths. This was the baptistry of his fifth century church at Ravenna. Although most Arian art was later destroyed or just allowed to deteriorate, this one, for some reason, was preserved. Notice a couple things. First, Jesus is so totally naked that you can see his privates. That was never in my Sunday School materials. Second, notice the really buff guy on the left? He is the personification of the River Jordan depicted more or less as any pagan god might be in antiquity.
We went next to look at a baptistry mosaic in the Church of San Francesco. But just as we arrived, siesta began and it would be closed for the next four hours or so. We biked on. Just around the corner we found the tomb of Dante Alighieri. There was a large group of German teenagers there, and I am confident that the poet would have assigned all of them to hell. When they cleared out, I snapped a quick picture of John.
Right around the corner was a large mound covered with ivy. The interpretive material told us that during World War II the Italians had hid Dante’s body there — to protect him from the Germans! Maybe they should try that again.
The most important site in Ravenna is the Church of San Vitale. It was built by the Emperor Justinian after he defeated the Goths and annexed Ravenna to the Byzantine empire in 540. This was the period of Ravenna’s greatest splendor. Notice the octagonal design. San Vitale does not look like much on the outside. Probably the brick was once covered with plater and painted brightly.
But inside is where it really comes alive. These are the largest of Ravenna’s mosaics. Look at the image in the apse below. This is the traditional Byzantine image of Christ as Pantocrator or “All Ruling”. Notice that Jesus is depicted much as a young Roman nobleman. As was typical of the Romans, he has no beard.
Flanking the imperial Jesus on his right is the Emperor Justinian.
Facing Justinian is the Empress Theodora. A former actress and courtesan — that is the kindest description — Theodora became one of the most powerful and sometimes despised women in antiquity.
There are also biblical scenes. Here we have Jeremiah on the right and Moses on the left. Under the angels are two key scenes in the life of Abraham: on the left and in the middle is the visit by the three young men to Abraham at the oak of Mamre, and on the right is the binding of Isaac.
The images in the arch above the altar depict Jesus and the twelve apostles. These are were done about 20 years after the others, and frankly they not quite as good. But in this later mosaic Jesus sports a beard. This marks the beginning of medieval Christian iconography.
I noticed the labyrinth on the floor in front of the altar. This is a shockingly new addition to the church dating from about 1500.
Near San Vitale is the tomb of Galla Placidia (386-452), sister of the Roman emperor Honorius. I am not quite sure why they call it her tomb because she is not buried here, and never was buried here. Nevertheless, it is a small but stunning mausoleum. The ceiling, featuring a golden cross and stars on a field of azure, is the most famous part of the tomb. I did not particularly interest John or me. We did like the image of Saint Laurence shown below. He was martyred by being roasted over a slow fire. At one point in his torture he is supposed to have joked, “I’m done on this side. You can turn me over.”
Also impressive is the depiction of Christ the Good Shepherd. Images of the crucified Jesus are medieval: the most common early depiction of Jesus is as shepherd.
We went on our bikes across town where we saw baptistry. This one was done by the Orthodox, that is, those who agreed with the Nicene Creed. I could not see a whole lot of difference between this and the Arian baptistry, but apparently there are subtle but important differences in the imagery.
Our final stop was the church of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo. It was built between 493 and 500. Most tours of churches in Italy begin with the words, “This church is in the shape of a Latin cross.” John was happy to discover that this one is not. It has the classic Roman basilica form of a long colonnaded hall with a semi-circular apse at one end.
Apparently the Pope told Charlemagne he could take whatever he liked from this church and he walked off with just about everything he could. Only the mosaics were left behind. I loved this depiction of the three wise men. Notice that they are wearing pants. Persians, or Pathians as the Romans called them, were just about the only people in antiquity to wear pants. The Romans thought pants were really weird and frankly sort of unmanly.
After a few hours we had seen enough and decided to get back on the motorway and return to Monterado. We love our palazzo! John went straight for the pool.
After spending a couple happy hours at the pool (which had a great wifi signal, so I was happy), we dressed and walked once again around our castle.
We went back to restaurant where we had eaten the previous evening. On a Monday night only a fraction of Sunday’s crowd was there. But the food was still great. On the advice of a German couple, we ordered the tiramasu for dessert. It was amazing, and very different from the usual glop that passes for this dish in the United States.
Tomorrow we will start out trip to Venice.
