Ravenna

Ravenna, city, Emilia-Romagna regione, northeastern Italy. The city is on a low-lying plain near the confluence of the Ronco and Montone rivers, 6 miles (10 km) inland from the Adriatic Sea, with which it is connected by a canal. Ravenna was important in history as the capital of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century ce and later (6th–8th century) of Ostrogothic and Byzantine Italy.

In ancient times the Adriatic lay nearer Ravenna, which rested on coastal lagoons that later silted up. The earliest inhabitants of Ravenna were probably Italic peoples who moved southward from Aquileia about 1400 bce. According to tradition, it was occupied by the Etruscans and later by the Gauls. It came under Roman control in 191 bce and soon became important because it possessed one of the few good port sites on the northeastern coast of Italy. The Roman emperor Augustus built the port of Classis, about 3 miles (5 km) from the city, and by the 1st century bce Ravenna had become the base for Rome’s naval fleet in the Adriatic Sea.

In 402 ce the danger of barbarian invasions compelled the Western Roman emperor Honorius to move his court from Rome to Ravenna. Ravenna was henceforth the capital of the Western Roman Empire until its dissolution in 476. As such, Ravenna was embellished with magnificent monuments. The city was also raised to the status of an archbishopric in 438. With the fall of the Western Empire in 476, it became the capital of the first barbarian ruler of Italy, Odoacer (reigned 476–493), who in turn surrendered it to the Ostrogothic king Theuderic (reigned 493–526) in 493. Theuderic made Ravenna the capital of the Ostrogothic kingdom, but in 540 Ravenna was occupied by the great Byzantine general Belisarius and was subsequently made an imperial exarchate.

As the capital of the Exarchate of Ravenna, the city was the administrative centre of Byzantine government in Italy. In the early 7th century the area administered included a diagonal strip of territory extending from the area north of Ravenna to south of Rome, the southern extremities of the peninsula, and various coastal enclaves. The exarchate was broken up by revolts and invasions after 726. About 751 Ravenna itself fell to the Lombards, who in turn lost it to the Franks in 754 under the leadership of Pippin III the Short. He gave Ravenna to the pope in 757; the local archbishops, however, retained almost princely powers.

A short-lived bid for independence on Ravenna’s part in the mid-12th century was followed in the 14th and early 15th centuries by the rule of the da Polenta family, a noble house of the Romagna region. In 1441 Venice was able to establish direct rule over Ravenna, but in 1509 the city was returned to the Papal States. In 1512, following the Battle of Ravenna, the city was seized by the French but was soon recaptured. Thereafter it was subject to papal rule with only minor interruptions. In 1859 Ravenna proclaimed its union with the kingdom of Sardinia, which became the kingdom of Italy in 1861.

Ravenna is now an agricultural and industrial city. Its principal enterprises include petroleum and natural-gas refining, the production of fertilizers and synthetic rubber, and the processing of oilseeds.

Nothing remains of the ancient Roman structures in Ravenna or of its harbour at Classis. The fame of Ravenna rests instead on the quality and quantity of its 5th–8th-century Christian monuments. As the capital city of the Western Roman Empire for 250 years and a major port of entry for the Eastern (Byzantine) Empire, Ravenna reflects in its art and architecture a fusion of Roman architectural forms with Byzantine mosaics and other decoration.

One of the earliest of Ravenna’s extant monuments is the mausoleum of Galla Placidia, built in the 5th century ce by Galla Placidia, the sister of the emperor Honorius. Its building technique is Western, but its Latin cross layout, with barrel vaults and a central dome, has Eastern prototypes. The entire upper surface of the mausoleum’s interior is covered with mosaics on a blue ground.

Of the monuments dating from the rule of the Arian Ostrogothic king Theuderic (d. 526), the most impressive is his mausoleum. This two-storied structure is capped by a single-slab limestone dome that is 36 feet (11 metres) in diameter. The Basilica of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo was also erected by Theuderic. It was originally an Arian cathedral but became a Catholic church in 570. This church contains magnificent mosaics depicting the teachings, miracles, Passion, and Resurrection of Christ; these are among the oldest such representations in existence and are of considerable scholarly interest. The church also has finely executed mosaics depicting processions of male and female saints.

The Church of San Vitale, the masterpiece of Byzantine art in Ravenna, was completed during the reign of the emperor Justinian. The church was begun by Bishop Ecclesius under the Ostrogothic queen Amalasuntha (d. 535) and was consecrated in 547. This octagonal church, built of marble and capped by a lofty terra-cotta dome, is one of the finest examples of Byzantine architecture and decoration in western Europe. The celebrated mosaics in the church’s presbytery are strongly influenced by similar work at Constantinople. They depict Old and New Testament figures, as well as contemporary Byzantine rulers and Catholic ecclesiastics.

Ravenna’s other surviving monuments include the following. The Basilica of Sant’Apollinare in Classe, begun in 535 and consecrated in 549, has a distinctive round campanile (870–878) that is the earliest example in Italy of the decorative use of majolica. This church also has impressive capitals in its nave and a fine apse mosaic depicting the Transfiguration of Christ. The Church of St. Francis (San Francesco) has a small annex containing the tomb of the Italian poet Dante Alighieri. The Church of St. John the Evangelist (San Giovanni Evangelista) was almost totally destroyed in World War II and has since been heavily restored. The oldest church in Ravenna, the cathedral, was originally built in 370–390 but was destroyed in 1733 and immediately rebuilt. Adjoining the cathedral is an octagonal baptistery containing fine Byzantine mosaics from the 5th century.

Ravenna’s National Museum of Antiquities, housed in the cloisters of the Church of San Vitale, has an important collection of classical and Early Christian antiquities, including inscriptions, icons, ceramics, ivories and other sculptures, and sarcophagi. The Church of Santa Maria in Porto Fuori, built after 1069, was, until its destruction in World War II, the only important surviving building of the later European Middle Ages in Ravenna. From the era of Venetian dominion there remain various palaces and a fortress, the Rocca Brancaleona. Pop. (2022 est.) 156,080.