San Vitale Perspective

San Vitale in Ravenna is a place where it is easy to understand why the 1% of the tourists who visit it, suffer from the Stendhal syndrome... Ravenna is a beautiful city where the glories of bygone eras are still evident. Its mosaics have made the town famous around the world but it is good to know its history at least minimally. It was founded in the 5th century BC. from some fugitives who found in that tangle of marshes and islets (where the Po, the largest Italian river flows), a safe shelter against the Celtic tribes that raged in those areas. The city was annexed to the Roman Empire centuries later and the emperor Augustus had a port built there which housed the imperial fleet destined for military expeditions to the East. When the Roman Empire was showing the first signs of collapse, Ravenna became the capital of the Western Roman Empire and later the capital of the Ostrogothic kingdom of Theodoric during which some of the artistic-mosaic masterpieces that we can still enjoy today were built. During the reign of Justinian, the synthesis between the artistic traditions of East and West came to maturity, giving life to a deeply original style that finds all its splendor in Ravenna in the churches of San Vitale and Sant’Apollinare in Classe. Sculptures, ivories, reliquaries and columns were commissioned from the highly refined workshops of Constantinople. Among the highest achievements of Justinian’s artists are Justinian and his court and Theodora and her entourage, two absolute masterpieces of mosaic art. Executed in the sixth century and placed one in front of the other in the church of San Vitale in Ravenna.