Ravenna: Basil. di Sant’Apollinare Nuovo

Ravenna, which served as the capital of three empires — Western Roman, Ostrogothic, and Byzantine — is world-renowned as the “City of Mosaics.” It is home to what is said to be “… an unrivaled collection of 5th and 6th century Early Christian and Byzantine mosaics. …”

We started planning this trip almost immediately after I heard the word “mosaics” uttered when describing Ravenna. That they were ancient … well, all the better.

The mosaics can be found in a number of sites around the city, but eight of them are UNESCO-listed. On this trip, we’ll be checking out five of them. To do so, we needed to purchase tickets … three of them requiring selecting timed-entry slots. There are a number of ticket packages … we bought the one covering five of the monuments. It was a bit of a challenge to complete the purchase, but we finally managed to do so by juggling the sites around and spreading them over three days.

Since the Basilica di Sant’Apollinare Nuovo (the New Basilica of Saint Apollinaris) is close to the bus and train stations, it was the perfect place to start our ‘mosaics tour’ … and kill time until it was time to check in to our B&B.

“New” is part of the basilica’s name … but that is relative. After all, it was built around the year 504 AD. Rather, the word is simply used to differentiate it from the older church by the same name … now destroyed.

The basilica was commissioned by Theoderic … the Ostrogothic king. It was a church associated with the Arian cult until it was re-consecrated in 561 as an Orthodox church … as ordered by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian.

Most of the mosaics in the church date back to the time of Theoderic. Justinian carried out some refinements to the them, including Orthodox iconography. The “Procession of the Martyrs and Virgins” was added during his time … the martyrs lead to an enthroned Christ and the virgins lead to an enthroned Virgin Mary. This harmonious mix of mosaics from the eastern and western world is a distinguishing feature of Ravenna’s art.

(For those interested in additional information about the mosaics in this basilica: https://www.ravennamosaici.it/en/basilica-of-sa… and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_of_Sant'….)

An excellent start to our mosaics tour.Leggi altro