Ravenna

In the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele are two granite columns erected by the Venetians in 1483. The cloisters of S. Maria di Porto erected in the town in the 16th century (owing to malaria, as in the case of those of Classe), and of S. Vitale, are pleasing 16th-century structures. The 15th-century castle in the north east corner of the town erected by the Venetians is a picturesque brick building. The walls, 3 m. long, which still surround the town, were also built by them.

History.

Strabo mentions a tradition that Ravenna was founded by Thessalians, who afterwards called in the Umbrians and left the city to them. About 191 B.C., by the conquest of the Boii, the whole of this region passed definitely under the domin ion of Rome. Under Augustus it rose into importance, when it was made the station for the fleet on "the upper sea." Two hundred and fifty ships could ride at anchor in its harbour. At the same time Augustus conducted a branch of the Po (the fossa Augusta) through the city into the sea. It also became important for the export of timber from the Alps. Strabo gives a descrip tion which corresponds closely with modern Venice.

On the other hand, good water was proverbially difficult to obtain at Ravenna—dearer than wine, says Martial. Trajan, however, built an aqueduct nearly 20 miles long, which was re stored by Theodoric in 5o3. Of this some traces still exist in the bed of the Ronco above Ravenna. Flies and frogs were also complained of, and Sidonius, writing in the 5th century, complains bitterly of the "feculent gruel" (cloacalis pals) which filled the canals of the city, and gave forth fetid odours when stirred by the poles of the bargemen. The port of Ravenna, situated about 3 miles from the city, was named Classis. A long line of houses called Caesarea connected it with Ravenna, and in process of time there was such a continuous series of buildings that the three towns seemed like one. It had large gilds of fabri (smiths and carpenters) and centonarii (firemen).

A pre-historic station was found in 1894 at S. Zaccaria near Ravenna, belonging to a Terramare. Of Roman Ravenna nothing remains above ground. It was connected with Ariminum, 33 miles to the south by the coast road, the Via Popilia, which ran on north to Hatria, and joined the road between Patavium and Alti num at Ad Portum.

Early in the 5th century, Honorius, alarmed by the progress of Alaric in the north of Italy, transferred his court hither. From this date (404) to the fall of the Western Empire in 476 Ravenna was the chief residence of the Roman emperors. Here Stilicho

was slain ; here Honorius and his sister Placidia caressed and quarrelled; here Valentinian III. spent the greater part of his life; here Majorian was proclaimed ; here the little Romulus donned his purple robe ; here in the pinewood outside the city his uncle Paulus received his decisive defeat from Odoacer. The great pinewood to the east of the city, which is still one of the great glories of Ravenna, must therefore have been in existence in the 5th century. Odoacer made Ravenna his chief residence. Theodoric's siege of Ravenna lasted for three years ten days after his entry into the city he slew his rival at a ban quet in the palace of the Laurel Grove (March 15,493)• Ravenna was also Theodoric's chief residence (493-526).

In 535 Justinian sent an army to destroy the Gothic monarchy and restore Italy to the empire. The Goths at length, weary of the feebleness of Vitiges, offered to transfer their allegiance to Belisarius on condition of his assuming the diadem of the Western Empire. Belisarius dallied with the proposal until he had obtained an entrance within the walls of the capital, and proclaimed his inviolable fidelity to Justinian (539). Under the rule of Narses and his successors the exarchs, Ravenna was the seat of Byzantine dominion in Italy. In 728 the Lombard king Luitprand took and destroyed the suburb Classis; about 752 the city itself fell into the hands of his successor Aistulf, from whom a few years after it was wrested by Pippin, king of the Franks.

It formed part of the Frankish king's donation to the pope in the middle of the 8th century, though the archbishops, as a fact, retained almost independent power. It was an independent repub lic, generally taking the Guelph side in the 13th century, subject to rulers of the house of Polentani in the 14th, Venetian in the 5th (1441), and papal again in the 16th. St. Romuald and St. Peter Damian were both natives of Ravenna. From this time (1509) down to our own days, except for the interruptions caused by the wars of the French Revolution, Ravenna continued subject to the papal see and was governed by a cardinal legate. In Garibaldi's wife Anita, who had accompanied him on his retreat from Rome, succumbed to fatigue in the marshes near Ravenna. Charles the Great carried off the brazen statue of Theodoric and the marble columns of his palace to his own palace at Aix-la Chapelle. Lord Byron resided at Ravenna for eighteen months in 182o-21, attracted by the charins of the Countess Guiccioli.