Architecture -- Italy -- Ravenna; Ravenna (Italy) -- History
Nothing seems to remain of his tomb or his grave; but the church is
full of curious fragments, broken pillars, bits of mosaic, ancient
marble panels, beautifully carved, and more than one old sarcophagus.
Somewhere there no doubt the dust of S. John Angeloptes awaits the
resurrection.
From S. Agata we pass to S. Francesco. This church was founded by S.
Peter Chrysologus (429-_c_. 449) and was completed by S. Peter
Chrysologus' successor, the archbishop S. Neon (_c_. 459). Its first
title would seem to have been that of S. Peter Major; we hear, too,
that it was called SS. Peter and Paul, and Agnellus in his life of S.
Neon calls the church Basilica Apostolorum. The region of the city in
which it stands would seem to have borne also the name _Regio Aposto
lorum_, though whether it got the name from the church or the church
from it is impossible to decide.[1]
[Footnote 1: The Franciscans conventuals would seem to have possessed
the church from 1261 to 1810.]
Unhappily the church has been entirely rebuilt in the eighteenth
century, and our interest in it is confined for the most part to the
tower, the crypt, the twenty-two columns of Greek marble which uphold
the nave, two of which are signed 'P. E.' and four others 'E. V. G.,'
and the tombs. The tall square tower dates, perhaps, from the tenth
century, the crypt from the ninth, but the columns are of the fifth
century. Perhaps the oldest thing in the church is the sarcophagus on
the right of the main door which has on its front Pagan sculptures and
on its sides Christian. Close to the holy water stoup is a very lovely
sarcophagus of the fourth century with reliefs of Our Lord and eight
Apostles. The ribs of the cover have as finials the heads of lions;
altogether this is a very splendid and noble tomb. In the last chapel
upon the right we find the great sarcophagus, still used as an altar,
of S. Liberius, bishop of Ravenna (_c_. 375), "a great man, a
never-failing fountain of charity; who brought much honour to the
church," according to Agnellus. The sarcophagus dates from the end of
the fourth century and is sculptured in high relief.
I shall return to S. Francesco when I consider Mediaeval Ravenna.[2]
At present I would direct the reader's attention to S. Giovanni
Evangelista.
[Footnote 2: See _infra_, p. 245 _et seq_.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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