Following up on Monday’s post of the basilica of St Apollinaris in Classe, the ancient port city of Ravenna, here are pictures taken by the same friend of the church of St Vitalis in Ravenna itself. The titular Saint, the father of the Milanese martyrs Gervasius and Protasius, and said to have suffered martyrdom there; he and Apollinaris, the city’s first bishop and its patron Saint, are named together in the Communicantes of the Ambrosian Canon. This is one of the most important early Christian churches in Italy, particularly because of the magnificent mosaics in the main sanctuary, which are not only very well-preserved, but also contain a very precious testimony to the early history of the Roman liturgy. Founded by a man named Julianus Argentarius, who was both a banker and an architect, the building was begun in 526 under the bishop of Ravenna Ecclesius, and consecrated in 548 by his third successor, Maximian. The main body of the church is octagonal (a shape normally used in that era for baptisteries), surmounted by a cupola.
In the main apse, a young and beardless Christ is accompanied by two angels, and on the left, St Vitalis, on the right, bishop Ecclesius, who offers the church to Christ. The naturalistic representation of the ground, with greenery, rocks and flowers, is typical of the older tradition of Roman mosaics, while the gold background, which represents heaven, and gives the viewer the sense of looking into the sacred place where Christ dwells with his Saints, is more in keeping with the then-emergent conventions of Byzantine art.
On the left side of the sanctuary, the mosaic under the arch represents (left and center) the Biblical episodes of the Hospitality of Abraham (Genesis 18, 1-10), in which the three men who come to Abraham and Sarah are also referred to as “the Lord” in the singular, and were thus of course understood as an appearance of the Holy Trinity. In the right side is the Sacrifice of Isaac (Genesis 22, 1-18.) Outside the arch on the left are the prophet Jeremiah; in the middle, angels holding a shield with the Cross in it; on the right; Moses receives the Law on Mt Sinai as the people look on from below (Exodus 19 sqq.)
On the right wall, the sacrifices of Abel and Melchizedek; the pairing of these with Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac on the opposite wall is one of the earliest artistic representations of the words of the Supra quae propitio of the Roman Canon, “Upon which do Thou vouchsafe to look with favorable and gracious countenance, and accept them, as Thou didst vouchsafe to accept the gifts of Thy just servant Abel, and the sacrifice of our Patriarch Abraham, and that which Thy high priest Melchizedek offered unto Thee, a holy Sacrifice, an unspotted Victim.” Above the arch, we see the same motif of the angels bearing the Cross within a shield.
The mosaic of the sanctuary’s ceiling, with the Lamb of God in the center, supported by angels on all four sides; in the arch at the edge, Christ and the Twelve Apostles.
The internal decorations of the cupola were completely redone in the mid-18th century. At the top is an image of the Glorification of Ss Vitalis and Benedict, 1788-81, by Ubaldo Gandolfi; the latter is included because the church was still a Benedictine monastery at the time.
The bell-tower was rebuilt in the 18th century after the original structure collapsed during an earthquake in 1688.
A reproduction of the dedicatory inscription from the church’s original consecration, recorded in Ravenna’s version of the Liber Pontificalis: “At the behest of the most blessed bishop Ecclesius, the exchequer Julian built, decorated and dedicated the basilica of the blessed martyr Vitalis, the consecrator being the most blessed bishop Maximian.”
