03 Apr
(As Per Sign)
Basilica Di San Vitale
The earliest historical information we have about this church is to be found in the epigraph located in the narthex of the church, from it we are able to deduce that the bishop Ecclesius was the episcopus mandans, its construction was entrusted to Julian Argentarius, and it was consecrated by Maximian in 547 or 548. The church was built on a 5th century temple in memory of the martyr Vitale which was to be incorporated into the later structure. The church was fronted by a great quadriportico, transformed into a cloister in the 10th century. Ravenna’s most impressive monument is certainly the basilica of S. Vitale. The church is octagonal and built of large flat bricks, a type of brickwork typical of all the buildings erected by Justinian. It is constructed on two eight-sided storeys, of which the upper encircles the dome. Each of the lower side walls is delineated by two pilasters that reach to the eaves of the roof, while strong buttresses rise up at the corners, ending in a triangular tympani. Within the interior, the artists have created an architecture whose impressive volume and grandeur create, with the grace and elegance of line, a play of fully and empty spaces, the light shining down from the great windows. Standing in the middle of the basilica, one is surrounded by eight massive pillars sheathed in veined Greek marble and reaching up to the drums of the dome, delimiting two storeys of hexedrae opening, at the upper level, given onto the matroneum. The cupola is one of the church’s most significant architectonic elements: it is made up of horizontal, concentric rings of twin terracotta pipes (is decorated with frescoes done in the 18th century). Also worthy of note are the tall and elegant columns: those at groundfloor are surmounted by finely-worked impost-capitals in the form of lotus leaves; certainly they were imported from Constantinople (the impost-capital was an invention of Byzantium of the beginning of the 6th century). One enters the presbytery through the great triumphal arch whose wide intrados fascia contains fifteen medallions: the image of Christ to the top of the arch, and the Twelve Apostles and Ss. Gervasius and Protasius (the sons of S. Vitale, or so the legend goes). The cross vaulting of the presbytery is richly ornamented with motifs which converge on the center from each corner to meet a crown encircling the Holy Lamb, surrounded by conspicuous symbols of eternal life. The surface is covered with mosaics. The sacrifice motif is renewed in the right lunette, but here Abel and Melchizedek are the personages; on the extrados of the arch of the apse stands Jerusalem and Bethlehem, symbolizing the everlastingness of the faith from the ancient Jews to Christianity. In the vault of the apse, the Redeemer seated on a blue globe appears flanked by two Archangels, S. Vitale and Bishop Ecclesio. At the foot of the apse side walls are the two famous panels depicting the Emperor Justinian and the Empress Theodora, together with their retinue: the Empress Theodora in the presence of a parade of the most beautiful and elegant ladies at the fabulous court of Byzantium. Unlike the presbytery mosaics where clothes cover solid bodies and the surroundings are of this world, in the two panels of Justinian and Theodora, the figures all face the front, their robes falling in stiff folds, with no hint of an underlying form, as though they were shadows in a world without boundaries and beyond time.
Posted in Ravenna by: kimber
No Comments
02 Apr
Basilica Di San Vitale For The Seeing Impaired, Ravenna, Italy
The Lion’s Club had a bronze relief of the Basilica Di San Vitale, along with an explanation in Braille for the seeing impaired. Unfortunately, we don’t see many tourist attractions that are so seeing-impaired friendly.
Posted in Ravenna by: kimber
No Comments
01 Apr
(as per sign)
Battistero Degli Ariani, Ravenna, Italy
This baptistery, built by Theodoric (493-526) next to the Arian Cathedral, was reconsecrated in the Orthodox cult (561): it thus became an oratory dedicated to the Virgin. During the Exarchate, the monks of St. Basil were settled in a house alongside it and by virtue of this it acquired the name of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, for the beauty and opulence of its interior. In the second half of the 17th century, the west-facing side was built onto with the addition of a building referred to as The Oratory of the Cross, of which the ex-baptistery became the apse, thus altogether effacing its original physiognomy for many centuries. Once it had passed into private hands, acquired by a family in the 19th century, it was purchased by the State in 1914 and, since then, thanks to numerous restoration works undertaken by the Commission of Monuments for Ravenna, efforts have been made to restore it to its pristine dignity. The Baptistery, situated to the south-west of the Arian Cathedral but not in line with it, stands as a small, brick building of octagonal plan. We are unable to admire the building its original proportions insofar as it has sunk by some 2.31 m into the ground. The building, outwardly, is divided into two by a cornice: in the upper part, finished with a brick cupola, each side is opened by a semi-circular arched window; in the lower half, the four apses. Originally, the Baptistery would have had a more articulated architecture, in that there was an anular corridor running around it. Within, the building presents only bare brickwork without plaster, marble or mosaic. Only the dome retains its mosaic decoration which was evidently inspired by the motifs of the Neonian Baptistry. These mosaics display however a much simpler composition: in the Neonian the decoration is in two wide fascia round a central disk with the Baptism scene, whereas here, probably due to insufficient space, the central medallion is enclosed by only one concentric band. In the center, Christ stands up to his waist in the transparent water of the river Jordan, whit a sober old man and Saint John the Baptists: the composition is fairly well balanced and the figures are rendered with a rather crude design which is further stressed by the use of dark contour lines. The large band surrounding the central medallion is occupied by the twelve Apostles divided, here too, into two groups: one group is led by St. Peter holding the keys, the other by St. Paul with two rolled scrolls in his hands. St. Peter and St. Paul are approaching a sumptuous throne, on which lies a large purple cushion supporting a jeweled cross. Thanks to technical-scientific researches carried out on the mosaic it was possible to ascertain that the central medallion with the Baptism scene, the throne, the figures of St. Peter, St. Paul and the Apostles following him, date back to the age of Theodoric (493-526), whereas the remaining images are probably executed in the mid-6th century and show a different style as well as the use of different materials. No other city in the world with remains from late antiquity has managed to preserve a baptistery dedicated to the Arian cult with wall decorations.
Posted in Ravenna by: kimber
No Comments
