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Ravenna, city of mosaic: 5th - 6th century AD
The town of Ravenna becomes a place of importance early in the 5th century when the western emperor, Honorius, moves his capital there from Rome to escape the advancing Huns. Well fortified and with a safe harbour, it remains until 751 the place from which Byzantines and barbarians in turn administer Italy.
The Byzantine rulers and the greatest of the barbarians, Theodoric, decorate the holy buildings of Ravenna in glittering mosaic, the medium which by now almost symbolizes the might of Christian rule within the Roman empire.
The earliest of the surviving mosaics in Ravenna are in the simple brick building, in the shape of a cross with an interior dome, which Honorius creates as a mausoleum for his sister Galla Placidia (she dies in 450). The images here are more natural and informal than in the later art of Ravenna. A friendly stag drinks at the fountain of life; a young-looking Jesus, the Good Shepherd, almost reclines in a wooded landscape while he strokes an adoring sheep.
From the same period is the baptistery (variously known as 'orthodox' or 'Neon') with its superb dome mosaics of the twelve apostles, in relatively informal poses, around a circular scene of the baptism of Jesus.
The best-known building in Ravenna associated with Theodoric, the Ostrogothic king, is his own mausoleum - with its dome carved from a single block of stone. But the Arian cathedral built for him in the early 6th century also survives (under its new name as the Roman Catholic church of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo), and some of its mosaics are from his period.
They include scenes from the life of Christ together with views of Ravenna and Theodoric's palace. Originally there were also portraits of Theodoric, his family and officials, until these were replaced by later Byzantine rulers - objecting to the personnel rather than the principle, for Ravenna's most famous Byzantine mosaics are of an emperor, his empress and their retinues.
On one wall of the choir of San Vitale in Ravenna, built for Justinian and consecrated in AD 547, the emperor stands with crown and a golden halo. On his left are his bishop, Maximian, and two priests holding a bejewelled book and a censer. On his right stand other priests and soldiers. One holds a great shield decorated with the Chi-Rho, the symbol of Christian armies ever since the victory of Constantine in 312.
On the facing wall is a more unusual group. Justinian's wife, the empress Theodora, stands in equal dignity, with magnificent crown and jewels, accompanied by her own priests and superbly robed women.
In the half-dome of the apse, above and beyond the imperial retinues, Christ sits on the globe of the world with saints beside him. He is still the youthful, unbearded Christ of early Christian art. But he is also now Christ in Majesty - the role in which, in mosaic, he will dominate the interior of so many Byzantine churches.
The imperial Christian hierarchy of Byzantium is never again so tellingly depicted as in San Vitale in Ravenna. But the mosaic medium in which it is expressed will have many other such peaks of creative splendour - in particular in parts of western Europe influenced by Byzantine culture, such as Sicily and Venice.
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