Ravenna & It's Byzantine Mosaics

[fumobici]

Ravenna is located just off the Adriatic coast about midway between Bologna, the republic of San Marino and Venice. It's a charming little city at the Eastern edge of the huge and flat Po valley probably best known for its incredible partimony of Byzantine monuments.

We'll start at the perhaps most amazing, San Vitale a 6th century basilica.


This is the courtyard of the cloisters attached to the basilica.


The dome.

The next few are the jaw dropping presystery:











The exterior:


On the grounds is the older Mausileo di Galla Placida built to house the remains of the daughter of the late Roman emperor Theodosius I who died in the mid 4th c. As mausileums tend to be, it was dark in there so forgive the photo.



And we'll stroll from here...




This is the splendid covered market. Great place to explore and grab a cheap bite.


The Piazza del Popolo. the town's central square.


Thenearby Chiesa del Suffragio

And on to Dante's tomb:










Dante's remains were hidden by the locals here nearby during the second World War so they wouldn't wind up in Berlin I guess.



Loved the fencing nearby.






Just a sunny courtyard!

Next stop: San Apollinare Nuovo, another 6th c. basilica originally Arian. More mosaics.















Next, the Battisero Neoniano and the ciy's duomo.




This is the baptistry exterior.



The baptistry itself is 4th century and beautifully preserved inside.













The nearby little museum has the amazing ivory cathedra/throne of some bigshot bishop named Maximian:











...and another mosaic.



Then a quick walk through the city's duomo which nice but can't compare to the Byzantine stuff.







Last stop on our way out will be San Apollinare in Classe, another 6th c. Basilica. This is odd insofar as it's kind of out in the middle of nowhere. I'm told there was a town surrounding it but it no longer exists.



The apse is stunningly mosaiced. The colors are surely as vivid as when it was new.





So there, Ravenna. Mosaic lovers, you simply must go.

[bixaorellana]

Beautiful, glorious, beatific, dazzling ......... really, nothing is adequate to those pictures of San Vitale. I'm wondering how you managed to hold up the camera to take a photo, drenched as you were in that perfection. Wow.

This is a gorgeous thread, Fumobici. I'm wracking my brain to see if I have any knowledge of Ravenna at all. The only thing that comes to mind is that I think they make that Italian relish that sounds somewhat like the word "mustard", but isn't mustard.

Did you go there for the mosaics, or was that a happy find once you arrived?

[bjd]

Thanks for these, Fumobici. Lovely memories. Bixa, anyone who knows enough to go to Ravenna does so because of the mosaics. They are extremely beautiful, as you see by Fumo's photos.

It's one of the rare places I bought a book of photographs because I figured the professionals would do a better job.

Fumo, do you think the mosaics have been restored or did you brighten up your pictures? I went there in 1985, so maybe there have been some changes.

[fumobici]

Thank you bix and bjd for dropping in and for your kind expressions. I did go there to see the mosaics.

I don't think the mosaics have been restored much for the most part, beyond cleaning and replacing tiles that fall out. I do mess about with many of the pictures I take in post production, but with the aim of recreating what I saw with greater fidelity rather than just sexing them up. Often raw photos just don't exhibit what my eye/brain sees. That won't do.

[nycgirl]

These mosaics are spectacular! Such beautiful colors, they seem to shimmer and glow. Thanks for sharing.

One of my favorite artists is Gustav Klimt, who was greatly inspired by the Ravenna mosaics. I can see why.

[bixaorellana]

Dec 8, 2011 22:17:59 GMT fumobici said:

I do mess about with many of the pictures I take in post production, but with the aim of recreating what I saw with greater fidelity rather than just sexing them up. Often raw photos just don't exhibit what my eye/brain sees.

Hear, hear! It's true that too many people "loud" up their pics, but done right, tweaking those raw pictures turns them into what you actually saw. You have really opened a window into a wonderful world for us with your sensitive editing, Fumobici.

I didn't know that about Klimt, NYCGirl -- thanks for that great nugget.

[auntieannie]

Thank you, fumobici, from the bottom of my heart to bring me back to a lovely summer holiday spent with my cousins on the adriatic coast. I know what you mean by trying to brighten the pics to match how they look in reality.

Bixabella, I think you got confoodled with Mostarda di frutta di Cremona - slightly further west in Lombardy whereas Ravenna is in Emilia-Romagna. but not bad not bad a memory, madam!

[Deleted]

Those warm colorful photos really cheer me up on this frigid miserable day in northern Europe.

[lola]

Gorgeous, Fumo.

The basilica has both those Tiepolo like murals and the Byzantine mosaics? Would those be decorations from different eras?

Wonderful colors. I'd love to see that. Thank you. This warms up a rainy midwestern US day, too.

[fumobici]

I'm sorry, I've absolutely no idea about the history of the mosaics or what they were meant to be about. I doubt it lessens my awe much though at their beauty. We've got dim damp and dreary down to a high art here in NW Washington state, so I can relate to the seductive charms of some warmth even if only experienced vicariously through a computer monitor.

[apres]

Stunning. Thank you so much for sharing these pictures. The colour of those mosaics is absolutely breathtaking! I must get to Ravenna someday...