The Mausoleum of Galla Placidia in Ravenna, near the Basilica of San Vitale, is one of the most extraordinary monuments of late antiquity, decorated with mosaics of rare beauty. A real «Sistine Chapel» of the early Christian mosaics.
According to recent research it seems that it was built by Galla Placidia as a family shrine, but it was not her tomb since the empress was buried in Rome. There are three sarcophagi, perhaps intended for the emperors Constantius III, Honorius and Valentinian III.
The plan is a Latin cross and is oriented towards the four cardinal points. The entrance is on the north side, with a corridor covered by a barrel vault decorated in mosaic with a blue background, studded with white and blue rosettes. In the lunette above the door the Good Shepherd is depicted surrounded by sheep and there is a symbol of the Earth beneath him.In the lunette on the opposite south side is depicted Saint Lawrence and the grate with the Fire underneath, while on the left there is a closet containing the four books of the Gospels with the names of the evangelists. The barrel vault has the same mosaic with rosettes as the entrance corridor.The east and west lunettes are equal and symmetrical, with two deers facing each other, surrounded by vegetal spirals: under the east window, in the center there is a symbolic representation of Water while under the west window there is Air, therefore the four lunettes as well as being oriented towards the four cardinal points also corresponded to the four elements: Earth and Air, Water and Fire.The barrel vaults preceding the lunettes are decorated with a tuft of acanthus from which spirals with vine leaves emerge, where two figures of apostles are inserted; higher up is a circle with the Christogram, the Alpha and the Omega. (Jesus told the Apostles “I am the Vine” and also “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end”).
The central part of the Mausoleum has a square turret covered by a circular dome; the mosaic has a blue background studded with golden stars of increasing size, with the cross in the centre, while the four evangelists are depicted in the four corners.
In the walls of the turret there are four other lunettes, each with two Apostles placed on the sides of a central window, under which there is a Kantharos with two Doves or a cup with Doves drinking water, alluding to the famous Mosaic of the Doves of Hadrian's Villa.
Therefore the twelve apostles are depicted in the mosaics, eight in the lunettes and four in the vaults with the Christograms. The Doves allude to the Holy Spirit and also to drinking from the vessel of immortality.
Galla Placidia was the daughter of the emperor Theodosius I and his second wife Galla Justina, as well as half-sister of the emperors Arcadius and Honorius, born from her father's first marriage.In 395 AD the Roman Empire was divided into the Eastern Empire under Emperor Arcadius and the Western Empire under Emperor Honorius.In those same years Alaric, king of the Visigoths, besieged Rome several times, and managed to conquer and sack it in 410; Galla Placidia was taken hostage and she had to marry Alaric's successor, Atatulf, becoming queen of the Visigoths.Galla Placidia was freed in 417 and she went back to Ravenna where she was given in marriage to Flavius Constantius, general of her half-brother Honorius.
From that marriage were born Giusta Grata Honoria and Placido Valentiniano who in 425, at just six years of age, became emperor with the name of Valentinian III, under the regency of his mother. Galla Placidia in the meantime had become Augusta Nobilissima and reigned for twelve years over the Western Roman Empire, facing rebellions, conspiracies and power struggles typical of the late empire.Her story is very long and complicated, and we will talk about it in another post.