Thread by @MalvagioMarco

Ravenna isn't famous abroad (it should be), but you might have read of its beautiful mosaics.
You know what's cool about those mosaics? Empires kept collapsing around them.
🪦👑A THREAD ABOUT RAVENNA, WHERE ROME ENDED TWICE, AND THE STORY OF ITS MOSAICS 👑🪦

The golden mosaics of Ravenna are from the fifth and sixth century - almost 1000 years before the italian Renaissance.
It was the end of the Western Roman Empire, and the beginning of what would later be called the Byzantine Empire.
Plus a nice gothic interlude.

I love those mosaics and the story they tell.
They're beautiful, they're unique, and I can't think of another place where history is so clearly written in art.
Through those golden mosaics, we can follow two centuries of history, and the fading hope for a re-united roman empire.

(Incidentally, I'll use WRE for Western Roman Empire and ERE for Eastern Roman Empire.
No wrestling association is involved with the mosaics in Ravenna, I swear. If you need a reminder about which roman empire is which, have my old thread:

https://twitter.com/MalvagioMarco/status/1323310816859426821

)

Let's start from the (so-called) mausoleum of Galla Placida.
It's traditionally thought to contain the tomb of WRE empress Galla Placidia (it doesn't, but maybe it was meant to).
These mosaics are from about year 425 - so still the old WRE.

(incidentally, you can tell these are super old because they include shading and natural poses. Later ERE artists decided those were silly things, unworthy of good christians, so they just depicted people posing grimly against a golden background, like good christians)

Why an empress' mausoleum in Ravenna, and not Rome?
Because a coastal city is nice when the world is burning.
So let's go to the WRE in the early decades of 400.

In year 400, the WRE still survived, and probably still looked as eternal as the sun and the sky to its citizens.
But it was an empire weakened and in turmoil, and everyone knew that.

30 years before, for the first time, the imperial armies had been unable to repel an outside force, at Adrianople.
Since then, the WRE had been on disarray, mixing diplomacy and warfare to keep the invaders at bay, while its economy and institutions crumbled.

In 410 the goth king Alaric, fed up with the duplicity and unreliabiility of the romans treating with him, sacked Rome. That shook the whole roman world - it was clear that even the heart of the empire wasn't safe anymore.
pic: goths sacking Rome

So the imperial court moved to Ravenna, a port where the fleet was based.
Surrounded by marsh, Ravenna was almost impossible to attack by land, and its position on the coast allowed quick communications (and, they hoped, reinforcement) from the much stronger ERE.

Galla Placidia, daughter of an emperor, married a general who became emperor in his own right. She had a cool, turbolent life - she was a hostage to the goths first, then their queen, then she fled to Constaninople, and finally came back to Ravenna.

Here, with the support of the ERE, she took the throne for her young son, and ruled for 12 years as a regent. She managed to navigate the backstabbing politics of the late WRE, where german chiefs, roman generals and the ERE jostled for influence over the western emperors.

She managed to keep the empire together, no small feat, and to improve the strained relations with Eastern Rome.
This wonderful mausoleum was built under her rule, so this mosaic dates from the last moment of peace and hope for the crumbling Western Rome.

It wouldn't last long.
After Galla, emperors quickly became puppets to roman and german generals, and with the economy collapsing, the wealthy province of Africa lost and Rome repeatedly sacked, the WRE ended less than fifty years from her death.

Italy was ravaged in the wars and invasion of the fifth centuries, its great cities depopulated, the trade network that supported them broken.
The much stronger Eastern Empire made a last (extremely determined) attempt to militarily rescue the WRE, but failed.

So we get our second set of mosaics: those from the Arian Baptistery and those from Sant'Apollinare.
They might seem in a similar style, but by their time the WRE was gone, and they were commissioned was the goth king Theodoric.

War-torn italy knew a time of recovery and peace during his (pretty enlightened) rule.
Theodoric couldn't rely on the vast resources and organization of the old empire, but still he hoped to bring enduring stability, and rebuilt his new capital.

Beside a grand palace (that no longer exist) and a beautiful cathedral, we have *two* highly decorated baptisteries from his time.
Why two? Because one was orthodox, and one Arian - the goths' flavor of christianism.

(At the time, many cities had two different bishops, one catholic and one orthodox, and they got along decently.
Religious tolerance wouldn't last, either.)

The palace of Theodoric didn't survive, but here we have a depiction in the mosaics:

The gothic kingdom of theodoric was a time of recovery in the midst of chaos.
A time where it looked like a goth-roman kingdom might peacefully (or at least without more wars) replace the WRE, with support from the East.
It didn't last, but the mosaics did.

Theodoric's heirs weren't as skilled nor as tolerant as he was.
And the Eastern Roman Empire, recovering from the chaos of the fifth century, grew stronger and stronger.
So strong its leaders wondered whether they really needed to deal nicely with the barbarians.

Enter Justinian and Theodora.
They ruled the ERE as an imperial couple at the height of its power.
They were energetic, capable and determined.
Justinian thought himself chosen by God to restore the wholeness of the Roman Empire.
These are their portraits, in Ravenna.

They had quelled the great Nika revolt.
They had built the world's greatest church.
Their armies had reconquered the province of Africa with surprising ease. So when the diplomatic talks with the Goths failed again, they decided to just retake Italy by force.

After all, they were the Roman Emperors. Wasn't Rome their birthright?
Justinian sent Belisarius, his most skilled general, to conquer Italy. The ERE was wealthy and powerful, the Goths were divided, and at first it looked like it would be an easy victory.

But just as the Empire seemeed close to reconquer Italy - and reassert Roman power over the whole mediterranean - disaster came.
The Plague of Justinian, probably the first occurrence of the Black Death in Europe, ravaged the empire.
(map: the conquests of Justinian)

At the same time, the Persian Empire invaded The ERE. With the Empire on the brink of collapse, the armies in Italy couldn't be reinforced. While Belisarius was an incredible general, what could have been a short conflict dragged for years, devastating Italy beyond recovery.

Still, the romans won, and Italy was roman again. Ravenna became their italian capital.
But the empire, devastated by the plague, couldn't protect its new domains when a new invading people - the Longobards - came.

Soon, the byzantine control of Italy was limited to a weak grasp on the south and the area surrounding Ravenna. This territory was called the Exarchate, and despite their weakness at the time, Romans held it for 200 more years.
Pic: Italy in 568, exharcate lands in orange.

We don't have much great art from those centuries, though - the Roman Empire, devastated by plague, invasions and religious strife, could barely spare the resources for building anything for centuries.

Its cities shrunk, its literacy fell, and when it started once again recoverying in the IX century, it had lost Ravenna and northern Italy for good.
(Roman history is full of comebacks, and byzantium was close to recover Italy much later, but it failed)

So, our next set of mosaics might look like a joke, and ok, they make me laugh.
But these mosaics are part of history, as much as the golden ones.
These mosaics are from 1200, many centuries after the last ones - and after the ERE finally fell to its enemies.

You can tell a lot of artistic know-how had been lost along the way.
It's important to push against the silly narrative of the middle ages as a dark age, but much was lost with the fall of Rome, and we should understand that, too.

By 1200 western europe was well in its recovery, after the long, long crisis.
Soon it would produce works of art every bit as wonderful as the romans ever did.
But it was a different world, and many arts, like these mosaics, were re-learned almost from scratch.

So let's go back to the mosaics of Justinian and Theodora themselves.
Some say the ancient world ended with their reign, and in many ways it's true.
For good or for worse, the roman and mediterranean world would never be the same after their time.

The hope of recovering the Roman Empire would never really look feasible again. Europe would be divided, as it still is.
But we get a last glimpse of that ancient world, here in Ravenna, and of the fascinating story of the people who lived in it.

Final Boring Notes: of course I simplified a ton of stuff, I mean, it's more than 200 years of history spanning multiple empires.
Also, sources are few and conflicting, so you can read very different accounts of the same things.

A few things I'll note for the most pedantic, though:

- The imperial court moved to Ravenna (from Milan) a little *before* Alaric's sack of Rome, because they weren't entirely stupid

- the mausoleum of Galla Placida is of dubious identification - almost surely, she was never buried there, the question is whether she meant to at some point.
I don't think it matters a lot, since the building is from her time and likely paid by her anyway.

- the mosaics of Sant'Apollinare (the goth ones) were partly replaced by byzantines after the reconquest, removing portraits of goth kings and religious stuff that was specifically arian.

Ok, as a bonus if you got there: there are actually two portraits of Justinian in Ravenna.
Either he aged like milk, or the second one is a repurposed portrait of Theodoric, historians are divided on the issue.

Ok, if you like this thread, I have more!
I collect them here when I remember to.
linktr.ee/Malvagio

eeek, correction, I wrote "cities had two bishops: one catholic and one orthodox".
I meant one ARIAN, of course, that was long before the great schism.