History

The decision that made Ravenna was practical. In 401 Honorius shifted the imperial seat away from exposed Milan to a town ringed by marsh and lagoon, hard to besiege and close to the fleet base at Classe. For most of the 5th century it held the title of capital of the Western Roman Empire, down to the deposition of the last western emperor in 476. The court drew artists and money, and the marshes that protected the city also helped its early buildings survive.

Power changed hands without erasing what came before. The Ostrogothic king Theodoric ruled from Ravenna between 493 and 540 and built for his own Arian faith; the Mausoleum of Theodoric, dated to 520, is roofed by a single stone slab quarried in Istria. When Byzantine forces took the city in 540, it became the seat of the Exarchate of Ravenna, the western outpost of Constantinople. The Basilica of San Vitale (548) and Sant’Apollinare in Classe (549) belong to this Byzantine phase, and the famous portraits of Justinian and Theodora in San Vitale date from these years.

The empire receded, but the city kept its weight as a religious centre. Centuries later Dante Alighieri, exiled from Florence, settled here under the protection of the Da Polenta family. He finished the Divine Comedy in Ravenna and died in 1321. His tomb, beside the Basilica of San Francesco, remains in the city; Florence has asked for his remains and never received them.