Day 6: new home, new finds
My one full day in Ravenna today, and I’ve seen seeing some sights. But I think I managed to keep it realistic, and I don’t feel too dead. Phew.
I got up earlyish to get to two of the most famous sights of all before it got busy. It worked brilliantly - I had the mausoleum of Galla Placidia almost to myself. And it also didn’t work, because it’s autumn and the morning was very misty, so I didn’t get the benefit of light flooding in from the alabaster windows. But it’s a beautiful space anyway, the most complete of all the mosaic decorative schemes, and before the Byzantines really took hold and made everything super-formal in style. Twinkling stars, birds bathing, and a Christ the Shepherd looking young and human.
Then to San Vitale, the much bigger octagonal church site right by Galla Placidia. I am fascinated by how these all connected up and interacted. There are still two other churches just opposite, and at least one other that was demolished around 1100, so this is just an incredibly dense landscape of churches. San Vitale feels the most obviously luxe of all the sites I’ve seen here - it has the marble wall cladding and super expensive columns in posh stone that many of them have now lost. And the mosaics, although only in the apse area, are stunners. I especially love the famous ones of Theodora and Justinian, real people doing real things, but there’s a wonderful set of Apostle heads around the arch with some real expressions.
It was still fairly early, and technically at this point I done the Major Mosaic Sites of Ravenna, so I started to go a bit more off piste. Firstly, the Museo Nazionale, which is in the monastery buildings attached to San Vitale, and gets maybe a tenth of the traffic. It’s not all riveting stuff, lots of gravestones and icons that really do all look the same after a while. But there were also some genuinely interesting gravestones, some frescoes and paintings I was glad to see, a better sense of how San Vitale fits into its landscape, and also some fabulous modern art commissions. Ravenna is full of mosaic thingies (there’s a rash of space invaders on street signs), and there was some modern stuff in this museum too. But my favourites were three amazing rough-clay wolves, lurking in a boring upper corridor full of majolica - in two different rooms, so you’d just got over the first pair greeting you when a third turned up in the enfilade. Really unnerving. There were also two clay girls sitting in one of the cloisters and I *three times* clocked them as real people.
I went to see one of the town gates, for completeness, since I was near it, but I won’t be chasing them down - lots of updates to the Roman originals. But it was on my way to the next thing anyway, which was *fabulous*. You go into the oratory church of San Eufemia, which looks like it needs a cash injection, and go out the back where you buy a ticket, then you descend under the building and you’re at floor level in a Byzantine palace. This area was excavated in the last 20 years or so, and shows a really complicated stratigraphy of domestic living on this spot. They’ve decided to strip back the medieval to the Byzantine “because it’s the layer we could expose completely”, but honestly it fits so well with the main tourist gig in Ravenna I’d be stunned if they’d gone further. It’s just floors, mostly geometric mosaic with a few lovely figurative bits (another great Christ the Shepherd, a four seasons), and also a Roman road surface which this palace splats across and totally interrupts. As the lowkey guide says, to be allowed to do that suggests this is quite an important building. They think one half of it had a public function, some kind of client or court role with people being invited in. Really fab to see something so newly discovered, without a long mythology, and to imagine just what else is under our feet in this city. (Incidentally, the guide also talks about subsidence, which several sites have mentioned - I’m used to Roman sites being lower than modern street level, but that’s because of building up. This is marshy country, but I’d have thought if all the buildings are sinking they’d… fall over? Cannot tell if this is genuinely scary architecture or dodgy translation, but fascinated.)
Then I went looking for a historic library, found it, and had a massive case of uncertainty about where I was allowed to be, so only poked my nose around (it’s still a working library and the signs aren’t very tourist-focused), and left in time to get to a church just as it closed for lunch. Decided to cut my losses and go there tomorrow instead - and to follow the example of the friars and get some lunch.
Very glad I did. A friend who is an archivist in Turin had sent me a bunch of restaurant recommendations for Ravenna, and the two I’ve tried have been delicious. This was Ca’ de Ven, house of wine, an old shopfront and cellar behind where they sell piadine and bigger meals. They have a seasonal menu, and I decided to have two courses for only the second time this holiday (I’ve had an awful lot of pasta). Tortellini with ricotta and herbs to start, and rabbit stuffed with apples and carrots for after. Really delicious, though with a glass of house red which was inky dark and left me fit for nothing. Fortunately, I’d already planned in a siesta, so I went back to my hotel and did that. (I won’t have the chance for all but one of my remaining holiday days as I’m much more in transit. So it felt good to be lazy.)
Besides, there was a reason for the lazy - I wanted to go out to Classe, the ancient port of Ravenna, and it’s too far to walk. Most people obviously drive or bike (there are so many bikes here I can’t quite cope - all my childhood Italy is on slopes about 17% steep or worse, but these Plain Folk have pancake flat spaces and bikes make a lot of sense). Or there’s a bus, but I was worried about finding it/the stop etc (should have asked tourist info really). Or there’s a train. But not a frequent train, especially in the return direction. My cunning plan was to get a 3.30 train to Classe (it’s only 5 minutes away by rail), and then I’d be in good time for the 5.30 train back, which is the first one for over two hours. So the siesta was strategic. The train was a tad alarming, though - it looked like ones I’ve been on before in Italy but to get out you had to pull a massive red lever to get the door open. The kind of massive red lever that usually comes with a ‘do not pull’ label. But it worked, and didn’t eg stop the train/get me thrown off. I was the only person getting off the train at Classe, so I guess the bus must be a bit more useful…
I probably didn’t need to worry about finding the bus stop, Classe is a one-street town. And the basilica I was going to see is a very, very large building complex, with a massive bell tower. No need to ask directions. It’s a beautiful building, very clean and serene. The walls are bare brick but they have kept the swanky grey marble pillars here which makes it look wonderfully calming. The mosaics are all in the apse again, with a beautiful scene of fields of sheep, plus angels, clouds, a golden cross, and St Apollinare, the first bishop of Classe/Bologna in the centre, after whom the church is named (he was buried and culted here). Plus Evangelists, date palms, birds, and other things I’m learning to see as standard in these designs. It’s very lovely indeed. There are also some early building features like a 9th century altar, and some things like huge marble tombs of early bishops, so it’s a space that warrants some quiet contemplation. I didn’t struggle to get back to the station for my train back, but I spent a happy hour-plus absorbing the atmosphere.
I had a mild qualm about the train back - would there be a big red lever on the outside, could I cross the tracks to get to the opposite platform etc? No worries -there’s only one working platform and the train back had push buttons to open doors. Phew. I had a gelato to celebrate back in Ravenna - coffee, and a scoop of Nonna Melia, which is some kind of proprietary biscuit. Tasty.
It propelled me to look at the church across the road from my hotel, which has looked old and interesting without really being on the tourist route. It turned out very interesting - basilica of St John the Evangelist, another foundation of Galla Placidia, at the opposite end of town from her mausoleum and church complex. This one has lost its interior mosaic (and in fact was terribly bombed in 1944 - here and Bologna there are a lot of places which suffered badly from the Allies). But they had rediscovered a load of later mosaics, from the medieval period, which were very endearing. Not the super skills of the Byzantine and Hellenistic mosaicists, but fun naïve fantasy animals and hunting scenes. The church also has its original swank marble pillars and basilica format, so very like St Apollinare in Classe, or St Apollinare Nuovo, which I saw yesterday. It’s a good reminder that the tourist sites in top preservation aren’t always the ones which were important at the time, or not the only ones.
I’ve decided to stay in Ravenna tomorrow till the afternoon sometime. Trains back to Bologna go every hour, and all I really want to do there is drink some nice wine and buy a piece of shrink-wrapped Parmesan the size of my backpack. I need to finish a book or two to make that happen… It's taking my life in my hands - the bugs here are insane - but there are still things I want to see. So I am resolved.
This entry was originally posted at https://bruttimabuoni.dreamwidth.org/913159.html. You can comment here or there as you please!
I got up earlyish to get to two of the most famous sights of all before it got busy. It worked brilliantly - I had the mausoleum of Galla Placidia almost to myself. And it also didn’t work, because it’s autumn and the morning was very misty, so I didn’t get the benefit of light flooding in from the alabaster windows. But it’s a beautiful space anyway, the most complete of all the mosaic decorative schemes, and before the Byzantines really took hold and made everything super-formal in style. Twinkling stars, birds bathing, and a Christ the Shepherd looking young and human.
Then to San Vitale, the much bigger octagonal church site right by Galla Placidia. I am fascinated by how these all connected up and interacted. There are still two other churches just opposite, and at least one other that was demolished around 1100, so this is just an incredibly dense landscape of churches. San Vitale feels the most obviously luxe of all the sites I’ve seen here - it has the marble wall cladding and super expensive columns in posh stone that many of them have now lost. And the mosaics, although only in the apse area, are stunners. I especially love the famous ones of Theodora and Justinian, real people doing real things, but there’s a wonderful set of Apostle heads around the arch with some real expressions.
It was still fairly early, and technically at this point I done the Major Mosaic Sites of Ravenna, so I started to go a bit more off piste. Firstly, the Museo Nazionale, which is in the monastery buildings attached to San Vitale, and gets maybe a tenth of the traffic. It’s not all riveting stuff, lots of gravestones and icons that really do all look the same after a while. But there were also some genuinely interesting gravestones, some frescoes and paintings I was glad to see, a better sense of how San Vitale fits into its landscape, and also some fabulous modern art commissions. Ravenna is full of mosaic thingies (there’s a rash of space invaders on street signs), and there was some modern stuff in this museum too. But my favourites were three amazing rough-clay wolves, lurking in a boring upper corridor full of majolica - in two different rooms, so you’d just got over the first pair greeting you when a third turned up in the enfilade. Really unnerving. There were also two clay girls sitting in one of the cloisters and I *three times* clocked them as real people.
I went to see one of the town gates, for completeness, since I was near it, but I won’t be chasing them down - lots of updates to the Roman originals. But it was on my way to the next thing anyway, which was *fabulous*. You go into the oratory church of San Eufemia, which looks like it needs a cash injection, and go out the back where you buy a ticket, then you descend under the building and you’re at floor level in a Byzantine palace. This area was excavated in the last 20 years or so, and shows a really complicated stratigraphy of domestic living on this spot. They’ve decided to strip back the medieval to the Byzantine “because it’s the layer we could expose completely”, but honestly it fits so well with the main tourist gig in Ravenna I’d be stunned if they’d gone further. It’s just floors, mostly geometric mosaic with a few lovely figurative bits (another great Christ the Shepherd, a four seasons), and also a Roman road surface which this palace splats across and totally interrupts. As the lowkey guide says, to be allowed to do that suggests this is quite an important building. They think one half of it had a public function, some kind of client or court role with people being invited in. Really fab to see something so newly discovered, without a long mythology, and to imagine just what else is under our feet in this city. (Incidentally, the guide also talks about subsidence, which several sites have mentioned - I’m used to Roman sites being lower than modern street level, but that’s because of building up. This is marshy country, but I’d have thought if all the buildings are sinking they’d… fall over? Cannot tell if this is genuinely scary architecture or dodgy translation, but fascinated.)
Then I went looking for a historic library, found it, and had a massive case of uncertainty about where I was allowed to be, so only poked my nose around (it’s still a working library and the signs aren’t very tourist-focused), and left in time to get to a church just as it closed for lunch. Decided to cut my losses and go there tomorrow instead - and to follow the example of the friars and get some lunch.
Very glad I did. A friend who is an archivist in Turin had sent me a bunch of restaurant recommendations for Ravenna, and the two I’ve tried have been delicious. This was Ca’ de Ven, house of wine, an old shopfront and cellar behind where they sell piadine and bigger meals. They have a seasonal menu, and I decided to have two courses for only the second time this holiday (I’ve had an awful lot of pasta). Tortellini with ricotta and herbs to start, and rabbit stuffed with apples and carrots for after. Really delicious, though with a glass of house red which was inky dark and left me fit for nothing. Fortunately, I’d already planned in a siesta, so I went back to my hotel and did that. (I won’t have the chance for all but one of my remaining holiday days as I’m much more in transit. So it felt good to be lazy.)
Besides, there was a reason for the lazy - I wanted to go out to Classe, the ancient port of Ravenna, and it’s too far to walk. Most people obviously drive or bike (there are so many bikes here I can’t quite cope - all my childhood Italy is on slopes about 17% steep or worse, but these Plain Folk have pancake flat spaces and bikes make a lot of sense). Or there’s a bus, but I was worried about finding it/the stop etc (should have asked tourist info really). Or there’s a train. But not a frequent train, especially in the return direction. My cunning plan was to get a 3.30 train to Classe (it’s only 5 minutes away by rail), and then I’d be in good time for the 5.30 train back, which is the first one for over two hours. So the siesta was strategic. The train was a tad alarming, though - it looked like ones I’ve been on before in Italy but to get out you had to pull a massive red lever to get the door open. The kind of massive red lever that usually comes with a ‘do not pull’ label. But it worked, and didn’t eg stop the train/get me thrown off. I was the only person getting off the train at Classe, so I guess the bus must be a bit more useful…
I probably didn’t need to worry about finding the bus stop, Classe is a one-street town. And the basilica I was going to see is a very, very large building complex, with a massive bell tower. No need to ask directions. It’s a beautiful building, very clean and serene. The walls are bare brick but they have kept the swanky grey marble pillars here which makes it look wonderfully calming. The mosaics are all in the apse again, with a beautiful scene of fields of sheep, plus angels, clouds, a golden cross, and St Apollinare, the first bishop of Classe/Bologna in the centre, after whom the church is named (he was buried and culted here). Plus Evangelists, date palms, birds, and other things I’m learning to see as standard in these designs. It’s very lovely indeed. There are also some early building features like a 9th century altar, and some things like huge marble tombs of early bishops, so it’s a space that warrants some quiet contemplation. I didn’t struggle to get back to the station for my train back, but I spent a happy hour-plus absorbing the atmosphere.
I had a mild qualm about the train back - would there be a big red lever on the outside, could I cross the tracks to get to the opposite platform etc? No worries -there’s only one working platform and the train back had push buttons to open doors. Phew. I had a gelato to celebrate back in Ravenna - coffee, and a scoop of Nonna Melia, which is some kind of proprietary biscuit. Tasty.
It propelled me to look at the church across the road from my hotel, which has looked old and interesting without really being on the tourist route. It turned out very interesting - basilica of St John the Evangelist, another foundation of Galla Placidia, at the opposite end of town from her mausoleum and church complex. This one has lost its interior mosaic (and in fact was terribly bombed in 1944 - here and Bologna there are a lot of places which suffered badly from the Allies). But they had rediscovered a load of later mosaics, from the medieval period, which were very endearing. Not the super skills of the Byzantine and Hellenistic mosaicists, but fun naïve fantasy animals and hunting scenes. The church also has its original swank marble pillars and basilica format, so very like St Apollinare in Classe, or St Apollinare Nuovo, which I saw yesterday. It’s a good reminder that the tourist sites in top preservation aren’t always the ones which were important at the time, or not the only ones.
I’ve decided to stay in Ravenna tomorrow till the afternoon sometime. Trains back to Bologna go every hour, and all I really want to do there is drink some nice wine and buy a piece of shrink-wrapped Parmesan the size of my backpack. I need to finish a book or two to make that happen… It's taking my life in my hands - the bugs here are insane - but there are still things I want to see. So I am resolved.
This entry was originally posted at https://bruttimabuoni.dreamwidth.org/913159.html. You can comment here or there as you please!