Ravenna, a Study Part 14

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 n.o.blest 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 n.o.ble 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 t.i.tle of S. Apollinare by the archbishop John, who a.s.serted that he had brought hither the relics of the first archbishop of the see from S. Apollinare in Cla.s.se 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 Ma.s.s? 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 mult.i.tude 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 c.u.m 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, Ca.s.sia.n.u.s, 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 Cla.s.sis, 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, Baltha.s.sar, 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 Cla.s.sis, 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 cla.s.sical 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 pa.s.s 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 t.i.tle 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 G.o.d 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, a.s.sures 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 ab.u.t.ting arches round the dome of S. Sophia at Salonica]

Here in this mighty tomb, which is known in Ravenna as _La Rotonda_, abandoned now in an unkempt garden, Theodoric, who expected to found a line of kings who would one day lie beside him; as long as he lay there at all, lay there alone. Not for long, however, did he enjoy that solitude. Already, when Agnellus wrote his _Liber Pontificalis_, the tomb was empty. He tells us that the porphyry urn, which had served as sepulchre for the Gothic king, then stood at the door of the Benedictine monastery close by, and that it was empty. And it seemed to him, he says, that the body of the king had been thrown out of the mausoleum because a heretic and a barbarian, as we may suppose, was not worthy of it. At any rate the body of Theodoric was no longer in the mausoleum in the beginning of the ninth century, and it is certain that it had been ejected thence many years before. In the year 1854 a gang of navvies who were excavating a dock between the railway station and the Corsini Ca.n.a.l, some two hundred yards perhaps from the mausoleum, and on the site of an old cemetery, came upon a skeleton "armed with a golden cuira.s.s, a sword by its side, and a golden helmet upon its head. In the hilt of the sword and in the helmet large jewels were blazing." Most of this booty they disposed of, but a few pieces were recovered and these are now in the Museo. It might seem that this can have been none other than the body of the great Gothic king.

Indeed Dr. Ricci finds the ornament upon the armour to be similar to the decoration upon the cornice of the mausoleum. If this be so it puts the matter almost beyond doubt.

Theodoric was not allowed to rest in the mighty tomb that Latin genius had built for him; but for ages many, famous and distinguished in their day, sought to lie under a monument so splendid. The place became a sort of pantheon. Long before then, however, it had been consecrated as a church, S. Maria della Rotonda, and a Benedictine monastery had been founded close by whose monks served it. To-day that monastery has utterly disappeared, and there are no signs of a church in the _Rotonda_. Only the mausoleum remains in a tangled garden, far from any road, empty and deserted.

XIII

THE BYZANTINE CHURCHES

S. VITALE AND S. APOLLINARE IN CLa.s.sE

When Belisarius entered Ravenna in 540, he apparently found more than one new building begun but not finished; of these the chief was the church of S. Vitale. This magnificent octagonal building with its narthex and atrium had, according to Agnellus, been founded by the Archbishop S. Ecclesius, that is to say, between 521 and 534. It was apparently finished and decorated later by Julius Argentarius, and was consecrated by the archbishop S. Maximia.n.u.s in 547. In plan it resembles very closely the church of SS. Sergius and Bacchus in Constantinople built by Justinian about 527. As we know both Justinian and Theodora, his empress, contributed largely to the perfecting of S.

Vitale, which remains certainly his most glorious monument in the West.

The plan of the church, as I have said, is octagonal, surmounted by a dome octagonal without but circular within. From one of these eight sides the sanctuary is thrust out, flanked on either side by a circular chapel with a rectangular presbytery. Standing obliquely across one of the two angles of the octagon, directly opposite this sanctuary, stretched the narthex flanked by circular towers. The great octagon is divided into two stories, each of which has three windows upon each of the eight sides, the octagonal dome being lighted by eight single windows.

[Ill.u.s.tration: S. VITALE]