Archbishop's Chapel, Ravenna

Ravenna is famous for its mosaics, and this is the smallest of its great mosaic interiors, a private oratory tucked into the first floor of the archbishop's palace. It was built around 495 for Bishop Peter II, at the very moment the city was ruled by Theodoric, the Ostrogothic king who followed the Arian form of Christianity. That context explains what the chapel says. It was the prayer room of the Catholic bishops, and its decoration is a carefully argued statement of their faith, which is why ICOMOS singled it out as the only early Christian private oratory to survive to our day.

The tiny chapel is laid out as a Greek cross, entered through a narrow vestibule. Its lower walls are faced with marble and porphyry, while the upper surfaces and vaults shimmer with mosaic. Above the entrance Christ appears as a young, beardless warrior in armour, a cross over his shoulder, trampling a lion and a serpent: an image read as a pointed answer to the Arian court. The barrel vault of the vestibule is filled with birds and flowers, and in the main space four white-robed archangels hold up a medallion with the monogram of Christ, surrounded by the winged symbols of the four Evangelists. Along the arches run medallions with Christ, the apostles and twelve saints, six men and six women. Some of the original mosaic was lost over time; in the sixteenth century the painter Luca Longhi filled parts of the walls with scenes in tempera, and the apse arm was rebuilt in 1917.

First dedicated to Christ the Saviour, the chapel later took the name of Saint Andrew. Together with seven other buildings in the city it has been on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1996 as part of the Early Christian Monuments of Ravenna. Ravenna itself, near the Adriatic coast of Emilia-Romagna, was in turn the last capital of the Western Roman Empire, Theodoric's seat and the centre of Byzantine power in Italy, and the mosaics left by each of those eras are why the city is so often called a treasure house of late antique art.

Getting there

The chapel is inside the archiepiscopal museum in the historic centre of Ravenna, a few minutes' walk from Ravenna railway station. Forlì Airport (FRL) is about 27 km to the south-west.