I woke up this morning, window dark, just another rainy day in Italy, and then I drew up the accordion blind and my God! Sunlight! Wow, when's the last time I saw the sun? Trying not to let the weather get in the way, but the rain and chill have been hard to take. So, after a great breakfast here at the Astoria Hotel (no b&b this time, got the best deal I could at the Astoria), headed outside for that glorious sun. Turned out to still be chilly, but a good sweater and my overcoat are the best armor I could don for Northern Italy.
Today's meditation is on the inside and the outside. Hit all of the big art historical sites here today, which is easy to do, they're all within a quick walk of each other, and struck by the dissonance between what a mausoleum or church looks like from the outside and what surprises await inside. Thinking that my experience of Ravenna has been a lot like that. The buildings outside of the historic center of town, say along Via Roma, my main corridor, are a bit dog eared, a bit battered. Padova had a vibrant energy, people moved quickly on the street, a bustle of energy and purpose. People in Ravenna seem to float. You see very nicely dressed women in stylish black jackets and black sunglasses, drifting down the street on bicycles, that bel figura, looking good, maybe looking better than the environment you're in, maybe your fine presentation is a protection from . . . well, who knows. But there feels to be a wariness in the air here. But you go into the historic center, all pedestrian walks and no cars, and there is more hustle, more young people, more money. Classy shops and real estate offices. The sweet filling in the chocolate candy that's turned a little chalky with age?
Back to the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia. A tiny pile of bricks. If someone said, o yeah, I visited the shed of Galla Placidia, I'd know what they were talking about. I saw this large, classy building, but the gates were locked and when I asked the ticket checker if that was the mausoleum, he shook his head. "No, that's the museum. You need a separate ticket." And the mausoleum? He pointed to the pile of brown bricks. "Ecco."
Inside, honey light drip from the thick alabaster windows and pairs of figures, evangelists or saints, sparkle blue and silver against dark backdrops on green mats where pairs of doves drink from the fountain of ever lasting life. I can't tell you how stunning the interior was. Especially after the busload of Italian school kids left. So you're standing shoulder to shoulder with what look like middle school kids, totally lost, blank eyed and antsy, and their teacher leads them out into the sunlight and they're touching and poking at everything within sight. Teenagers are teenagers everywhere! But back to the hot buzz of eternity. Overhead, the ceiling is sparkling with stars surrounding a golden cross. Here is one version of fifth century Christianity, paid for by Empress Galla Placidia, who ran the Western empire after her brother, Emperor Honorius, died. Her son, Valentinian was a minor and too young to rule -- perhaps in middle school? -- , and so Galla left her husband, Ataulfo, the Visigoth King of Spain, to take charge of the empire. The mausoleum became a place of rest for Honorius, for her other husband, Constantius III (don't ask), and, of course, for herself. All of that, packed into a little pile of bricks.
But Christianity in fifth century Italy was experiencing growing pains. We all know the empire eventually gave in to the barbarians, but did we know that the barbarians, or at least some of them like the Visigoths and the Orthogoths, had converted to Christianity, but the wrong kind of Christianity -- Arianism? Ravenna hosts two very similar baptisteries, the Neonian or Orthodox baptistery and the Arian one. I just don't know enough about Arianism to understand the difference, but the iconography is very much the same, though stylistically different. The Arain baptistery is very spare except for the ceiling, which portrays the baptism of a very young, beardless, nude Christ. It's funny, at about the same time as the Arian heresy, Christianity couldn't decide how to deal with the tricky business of Jesus being both God and Man. He wasn't portrayed hanging from a cross for decades (centuries?) because the representation of the death of his physical body distracted from the knowledge of his divine nature. If you look at this Christ, you won't have any doubts about his gender. Just try that today and see what happens! The baptism includes John the Baptist and the pagan God representing the Jordan River. Yes, pagan and Christian images mixed. And a circle of apostles form an honor guard below. Interesting, they are represented in a flat, stylized manner that recalls the abstracted Byzantine manner of the Basilica of San Vitale. Curious, because the Byzantine Emperor Justinian abhorred the barbarian presence in Italy and lead an invasion to drive them out. It failed, but some very amazing art was left in Ravenna as a result.
The other baptistery, the Neonian or Othodox, represents the very same scenes and figures, but in a fuller, more muscular and naturalistic style that reflects the naturalism of classical Roman art. In fact, people come to Ravenna to mark the stylistic differences because very shortly, that assured naturalism, both feet on the ground kind of naturalism, was going to disappear for about a thousand years.This baptistery, also a small pile of bricks, was impressive, every surface sparkling with golden light and layer on layer of imagery reflecting the inclusiveness of orthodox Christianity. The guide book in my room points out that the newly converted probably saw the reflection of Christ in his baptismal fount, which had to be very poignant and reassuring.
Just too much else to describe right now, especially because I'm tired and I have a full day tomorrow. I also saw the Basilica of San Vitale, another masterpiece you can't describe in a few words, the Basilica of Saint Apollinare Nuovo, another Byzantine master work, and the National Museum, a treasure chest of prehistoric, Roman, Venezian-Byzantine and Ravennan art. One neat happenstance. As I was coming into one of the galleries, I heard a lot of noise like sheet rock being screwed to the wall. Turns out it was the capital, or crown, of a classical column was being packed up in a one-of-a-kind wooden box for shipment to an exhibit. The guard walked me into the room where the museum staff was working and let me watch the assembly for a few minutes. I thanked her and said you usually only see the objects in a museum and this was a treat to see real humans at work, making a museum function.
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