Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna

Along both walls of the nave of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna run three tiers of mosaics on a ground of gold, among the most complete cycles to survive from the early 6th century. The most memorable is the lowest band: on one side a procession of virgins, led by the Three Magi in Phrygian caps and trousers, advances from the port of Classe towards the Virgin and Child; on the other, a file of martyrs walks out of Theodoric's palace towards Christ enthroned among angels. The Magi here carry the names Balthasar, Melchior and Gaspar, thought to be the earliest instance of those names in Christian art.

The church was built by the Ostrogothic king Theodoric the Great as his palace chapel and dedicated in 504 to Christ the Redeemer for the Arian faith of the Goths. After the Byzantine conquest it was reconsecrated in 561 under Emperor Justinian to Saint Martin of Tours, a fierce opponent of Arianism, and mosaics that celebrated the king or expressed Arian doctrine were removed. The traces of that purge are still visible: on the columns of the palace pictured in the mosaic, hands and arms of figures that were erased can still be seen. Tradition holds that Pope Gregory the Great had the mosaics darkened because their splendour distracted worshippers. In 856 the relics of Saint Apollinaris were brought here from Classe for safety from seaborne raiders, and the church took its present name. The upper tiers belong to Theodoric's time: thirteen small scenes of Christ's miracles and parables on one side, where he appears young and beardless, and thirteen of the Passion and Resurrection on the other, where he is bearded, with a row of saints and prophets between the windows. The great processions below date from the later, Byzantine phase. Twenty-four columns with simplified Corinthian capitals divide the nave, the round bell tower dates from the 9th or 10th century, the portico from the 16th, and the apse was rebuilt after damage in the Second World War.

The basilica is one of the early Christian monuments of Ravenna inscribed together on the UNESCO World Heritage List, cited for the way it fuses Western and Eastern traditions. Ravenna, near the Adriatic in Emilia-Romagna, was capital of the Western Roman Empire, then of the Ostrogothic kingdom and later of Byzantine Italy, and its churches preserve an unrivalled body of mosaics from those centuries.

Getting there

Sant'Apollinare Nuovo stands in the historic centre of Ravenna, about 0.5 km from the city centre. The nearest airport is Forlì (FRL), about 27 km away.