Early Christian Monuments of Ravenna
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How it came to be
Ravenna became the capital of the Western Roman Empire in 402, and in 476 the last western emperor, Romulus Augustulus, was deposed there. A small chapel probably commissioned by Galla Placidia, sister of the emperor Honorius, was built between 425 and 450, with a dome of golden stars on a dark blue ground. It is known as her mausoleum, but that is a misconception dating from the 13th century; she died in Rome and was buried there.
Sent into Italy by the eastern emperor, the Ostrogothic king Theodoric took Ravenna in 493 after a three-year siege and made it his capital. An Arian Christian, he dedicated his palace church, now Sant'Apollinare Nuovo, in 504, and in 520 built his own mausoleum. Its roof is a single carved stone 10 m across and weighing 230 tonnes.
In 540 Justinian's general Belisarius took Ravenna, and the city became the seat of Byzantine rule in Italy. San Vitale was completed in 547 under Bishop Maximian, paid for by the local banker Julius Argentarius at a cost of 26,000 solidi. On the side walls of its apse are mosaic panels of the emperor Justinian and the empress Theodora, also completed in 547. Eight buildings of the 5th and 6th centuries were inscribed together as a World Heritage site in 1996.
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