Ravenna, a Study

These mosaics have often been remade and repaired. When Crowe and Cavalcaselle examined them before 1860 they found that the whole tunic of the Moses had been repainted and half...

The answer of the pope was mild but firm: mild, for the hour was not yet come; firm, for it would strike ere long. "Tell your king," said he, "that I swear in the presence of Go...

When in the year 1438 duke Filippo Maria Visconti of Milan forced Ostasio da Polenta, the fifth of that name, into an alliance and the Venetians thereupon invited him to visit t...

Now Caesar had long watched the astonishing actions of Pompey, and had no intention of leaving the fate of the republic to him and the aristocracy. He does not seem to have wish...

Italy was in this unstable state when, on the 2nd October 534, Athalaric died in his eighteenth year. This apparently upset Amalasuntha's plans. At any rate, we see her suddenly...

From this general bankruptcy one city certainly escaped; that city was Ravenna, which since the year 540, when she had opened her gates to Belisarius, had been free from attack,...

He begins by telling us that the too early death of the emperor, who was poisoned, as is thought, at Buonconvento in southern Tuscany on S. Bartholomew's day in 1313, cast every...

Boccaccio, it will be remembered, had in his life of Dante bitterly upbraided Florence for her treatment of her greatest son, and to his blame had added a prophecy that she woul...

Theodore Calliopas was twice exarch. Of his first administration we know nothing at all; but in 646 he was succeeded by Plato (646-649), whose name we learn from a letter of the...

Undoubtedly the greatest monument which the sixteenth century has left us in Ravenna is the church of S. Maria in Porto. This was built by the Canons Regular of the Lateran, the...

Under the mosaic of the burning of the heretical books we see the mighty sarcophagus of plain Greek marble which once held the body of the Augusta. This, of old, was richly ador...

Italy, however, needed peace as badly as the Goths needed a secure retreat. And when negotiations were opened it was seen that their success depended entirely upon this question...

That appeal for help was in all probability not made only on account of the threat of Liutprand against Rome. It was obvious and more and more obvious that the imperial power in...

It has been maintained by many historians that the great reform of which the establishment of the exarch and the exarchate is the result was the work of that very great reformer...

In this he was attempting with a small and weary force what had never before been accomplished. Theodoric, it is true, had entered Ravenna as a conqueror, but only by stratagem...

This man is another Stilicho, another Aetius, a great and heroic soldier, but of a sinister and subtle policy without loyalty or scruple. His is a figure that often appears abou...

The great city-port thus became one of the most important and considerable of the cities of Italy, at a time when the whole of the West was rapidly increasing in wealth and popu...

"He gave one of his daughters in marriage to the king of the Visigoths in Gaul, another to the son of the Burgundian king; his sister to the king of the Vandals and his niece to...

My intention in writing this book has been to demonstrate the unique importance of Ravenna in the history of Italy and of Europe, especially during the Dark Age from the time of...

Of this great man Agnellus records: "He was beautiful in appearance, lovely in aspect; before him there was no bishop like him in wisdom, nor any other after him." He was a nati...

Theodoric was, as these works serve to show, a great builder of churches in his capital. Not all of them have remained to our day. Dr. Ricci has thought that we see something of...

"Anastasio held out thus a long time, without lending an eare to such friendly counsell: but in the end, he was so neerely followed by them, as being no longer able to deny them...