FREE ESSAY ON MOSAICS OF SAN VITALE

MOSAICS OF SAN VITALE

Mosaics of San Vitale
ERIK BUNGO
The church of San Vitale in Ravenna was dedicated to St. Vitalis. After the discovery of
the bones of the reputed martyrs Agricola and his slave Vitalis at Bologna in the fourth
century, Vitalis was widely venerated in the west. The church of which he is the patron
saint in Ravenna was begun by Bishop Ecclesius in the second quarter of the sixth
century, when the Goths still ruled there. Funds for its construction were supplied by
Julianus Argentarius. The church was completed and consecrated by Bishop Maximian in
547/8, after control had passed to the Byzantines . San Vitale was built on an octagonal
plan (Ills. 1), with eight heavy piers supporting the drum and dome. The inspiration for
the central plan likely came from the east, for Ecclesius had recently returned from a
visit to Constantinople, but the construction is Roman. Of special interest are the
mosaics of the sanctuary and apse. The mosaics in San Vitale cover the entire sanctuary
(Ills. 2,3). In different symbols and images, they all convey one idea: the redemption of
mankind by Christ and the sacramental re-enactment of this event in the eucharistic
sacrifice. The compositions must thus be understood as the setting for the rite
celebrated in this room and as closely related to it.
In the vault there appears the Lamb of God in the midst of a wreath, which is supported
by four angels standing on globes. The image of the lamb was introduced into the Roman
rite only at the end of the seventh century by Pope Sergius I, a Syrian . But, in the
liturgies of the East, this symbol of the Christian sacrifice appears at an earlier date,
and we are justified in interpreting its representation in San Vitale as alluding to the
eucharistic liturgy (Ills. 4).
The first arcade of the sanctuary is decorated with fifteen medallions, showing the
images of Christ, of the twelve apostles, and of Gervase and Protase, who, with their
father Vitalis, were venerated in this church. In the ancient liturgy of Ravenna, all
these saints are mentioned in the so-called diptychs, the Book of Life, listing the names
of those whom the church wishes to remember at every Mass (Ills. 4, 5).
The next bay on either side shows, above the columns supporting the arcades of the
galleries, two sacrificial scenes from the Old Testament. On our left, the three angels
appearing to Abraham in the valley of Mambre (Genesis, chap. 18), and Isaac whom his
father is about to sacrifice; on our right, Abel offering a lamb, and Melchizedek with
his sacrifice of bread and wine. Above them, there appears the hand of God, the
traditional symbol of the divine presence and of God's acceptance of the sacrifice (Ills.
6, 7).
All four scenes allude to the eucharistic sacrifice. To make this significance plain, an
altar is depicted between Abel and Melchizedek, on which are placed a chalice and two
loaves of bread, identical in shape with that which Melchizedek offers and also with the
eucharistic bread which the church used during the sixth century . The altar motif
appears again in the opposite mosaic: Isaac is shown kneeling upon an altar, and even the
table behind which the three angels are seated resembles the simple wooden altar of
Christian antiquity. The three round cakes which Sarah has placed before the heavenly
messengers are marked with the sign of the cross and recall again the eucharistic hosts
of that time. In patristic exegesis and in Christian art and literature, the four scenes
depicted are among the most frequent symbols of the eucharistic sacrifice.
Above these mosaics and flanking the graceful arcades of the gallery, the four
evangelists are represented: Matthew and Mark on the left wall, John and Luke on the
right. All four appear seated in a mountainous landscape, holding their Gospels on their
knees. Their symbolic animals are seen above them; writing utensils are placed at their
sides (Ills. 8, 9). The relation of these figures to those below is obvious: as the two
tables which Moses received on Mount Sinai contained the Old Law, so the New Regulation
is contained in the Gospels. In the later Middle Ages, Christian art expressed this
relation by depicting the apostles standing on the shoulders of the prophets . The
mosaics in San Vitale express the same thought. It must be mentioned, however, that the
four evangelists are depicted not solely as the authors of the Gospels. They, too, are
symbols of the sacramental life of the Christian.
As we proceed deeper into the sanctuary, toward the main altar of San Vitale, we face two
monumental compositions. The imperial panels in the church of San Vitale at Ravenna are
perhaps the most famous of all Byzantine mosaics. The two panels face each other, one on
each side of the apse. The left panel (Ills. 10) shows the Byzantine emperor Justinian in
the midst of his attendants. The right panel (Ills. 11) shows the empress Theodora,
Justinian's consort, similarly attended. Each member of the imperial pair wears
extravagant purple imperial robes and a crown and is distinguished by a halo. Each also
carries gifts for the church, Justinian a gold paten and Theodora a golden chalice. Each
group appears to be advancing toward the center of the apse across a green floor between
two jeweled gold columns, which, in Justinian's panel support a coffered ceiling and in
Theodora's support a carved egg and dart cornice .
While the wall behind Justinian's scene is plain gold, Theodora's scene has a more
elaborate background: a niche with a shell-shaped conch directly behind the figure of the
empress, at the left an open doorway hung with a curtain behind a small gushing fountain
on a pedestal, and at the right a section of gold ground with a drapery hanging above it
. The emperor has, to his right, two prominent dignitaries wearing white mantles with
purple tablia over short white tunics embroidered with shoulder ornaments. To their right
stands a group of guardsman carrying spears and a shield. To the emperor's left is
another white-robed dignitary squeezed into a narrow space, to his left a bishop labeled
Maximianus carrying a gold cross, and to Maximian's left two deacons, one carrying a
Gospel book and the other a censer . Theodora has two eunuchs to her right, one of whom
touches the curtain in front of the doorway as if to lift it, and to her left two
prominent noblewomen and a group of five ladies-in-waiting.
Inside the church, in the overall context of the decoration of the sanctuary, these
panels are located in the apse's hemicycle, which is otherwise occupied mainly by three
large windows (Ills. 12). The panels are integrated into the larger apse decoration by
the simple and standard means of ornamental borders and decorative architecture . The
borders include a ubiquitous pearl and jewel band and a scalloped black and white one.
The bejeweled columns used at the sides of each panel reappear in a slightly larger size
between the windows of the apse.
In the simplest sense, the intended purpose of these panels seems clear. It is to glorify
the emperor Justinian and his empress, Theodora. In a wider sense, the mosaics may be
conceived as a glorification of the whole institution of imperial autocracy, in Italy and
throughout the world. At this time Justinian was vigorously expanding his empire beyond
the lands he had inherited in the eastern Mediterranean. In 535, just after conquering
northern Africa from the Vandals, the emperor sent an expedition under Belisarius, his
most capable general, to take Italy from the Ostrogoths. In 540, after Belisarius secured
the surrender of the Ostrogothic king Vitigis and the Ostrogoths' capital at Ravenna, he
held all of Italy except for a few Ostrogothic outposts. At that point, Justinian
recalled Belisarius to fight the Persians in the East. The Ostrogoths then rallied and
retook much of Italy before the Byzantines finally completed the conquest in 561 .
The scholarly consensus is that these mosaics represent an imaginary procession, given
that Justinian, Theodora, and Maximian, the archbishop of Ravenna, who is labeled in the
mosaic, were never together in the same place after Maximian's consecration in 546 . The
figures apart from Justinian, Theodora, and Maximian are generally thought to be
unidentifiable, though some tentative suggestions have been made for two or three others.
After all, the mosaics must be essentially genuine, and the central figures can hardly
represent anyone other than Justinian and Theodora, who reigned when the church was
consecrated and were contemporaries of Archbishop Maximian. Like other works of imperial
art, the mosaics of San Vitale were produced at a certain time for a certain occasion,
but they were intended to retain their significance independently of that occasion, once
it was past and forgotten.
The only explicitly identified character in either panel is Maximian (Ills. 13), the
first Bishop of Ravenna to rank as an archbishop, whose name is inscribed above his head.
The only other similarly identified bishop in the church's mosaics is Ecclesius,
represented in the act of offering the church to Christ in the apse at the viewer's far
right. This prominent position mirrors that of the church's titular saint, Vitalis, whom
Christ awards the crown of martyrdom in the same scene at the far left (Ills. 12). We
know from the ninth-century chronicler Agnellus, who saw a now missing inscription in San
Vitale, that Ecclesius was the bishop who initiated the church's construction, that
Maximian was the consecrating bishop, and that a certain Julianus Argentarius actually
had the church built, decorated, and dedicated. Agnellus records that Julianus, a
well-known patron of churches in Ravenna and probably a Greek and a banker, paid the
substantial sum of 26,000 solidi to build San Vitale .
Carved monograms on several capitals in the church name a third bishop, Victor,
Maximian's immediate predecessor, who obviously took a part in the construction.
Ursicinus, who was bishop between Ecclesius and Victor, presumably participated as well.
Victor's episcopate included the year 540, when the Ostrogoths, who followed the Arian
heresy although they tolerated Orthodoxy among their subjects, surrendered Ravenna to the
Orthodox Byzantines . Since San Vitale was begun under Ecclesius and consecrated by
Maximian, the work spanned about two decades and took place under four bishops and two
radically different political and religious regimes, one Ostrogoth and Arian and the
other Byzantine and Orthodox. The details of the work's progress and exact participation
of each sponsor are not recorded in the sources and can only be conjectured. However,
that the panels were planned together as a matching set, depicting the imperial couple
bringing gifts to the church, is clear. They surely belong to the period after 540,
because the Ostrogothic kings would hardly have permitted anyone to put up mosaics in
their capital that glorified the emperor and empress as rulers at Ravenna.
With this background in mind, we can turn our attention to specific details on the
imperial panels in San Vitale. The figures in the San Vitale panels are characterized
according to conventions of Byzantine portraiture that define their age and position. The
mosaicists have done this with indisputable competence and a fairly wide technical
repertoire, though without excessive care for details of technique. Among the conventions
known to the mosaicists was the indication of age through the choice of colors and the
setting of rows in patterns to represent either younger and firmer flesh, as in the faces
of Theodora's ladies-in-waiting and the young lady to their left (Ills. 14), or sagging
and paler cheeks - if in a somewhat understated manner - for Theodora herself (Ills. 15)
and her closest female companion (Ills. 16). Age is represented for men through
hairstyles, beards or a lack of them, and brow and cheek patterns ranging from smooth to
furrowed. For instance, Justinian, though clean-shaven, has the shadow of a beard (Ills.
17), while the adolescent second from his right and Theodora's eunuchs (Ills. 18) have no
traces of beards. The visible flesh parts in the San Vitale panels' heads and hands are
made exclusively with glass tesserae, except for two of the heads, to be considered
shortly, which are made mostly with stone cubes .
This last observation, which bears on the technique, is important because it allows the
group as a whole to be placed in the chronologically earlier stages of the San Vitale
mosaic decoration, when glass tesserae were used overwhelmingly to render features,
hands, and feet as well as ornaments. Areas similarly treated include the entire apse,
the vault of the Lamb, the topmost parts of the sanctuary walls, and the top medallions
of the west arch (Ills. 12). During a restoration phase, to give the most noticeable
example, white marble and limestone usually replace the white and silver glass.
After many years of study of the mosaics, the existence of a division between two phases
at the same level on all four walls of the sanctuary and in the west arch was established
. It follows that all the work on the mosaics in San Vitale was interrupted at the same
point, after the mosaics of the apse had been finished. Work was resumed somewhat later
with slightly different materials, although, at least in the medallions of the west arch,
it continued the program's original plan (Ills. 12). The boundary between the two
original phases runs horizontally around the sanctuary at about the level of the
springing of the vault, so that it separates the vault and the north and south tympana
from everything beneath them, including the panels of the Evangelists that flank the two
imperial panels.
The figures of the two deacons in Justinian's panel display an oversimplified and linear
rendition of their features that point to a lower level of technical proficiency (Ills.
19, 20). They seem inspired by real people, and were set by a different hand from the
dignitaries and guards. The remaining two heads, those of the bishop (Ills. 13) and of
the man who appears in the background between him and the emperor (Ills. 21), are even
more different. They alone are made predominantly with stone tesserae, even though they
share with the deacons a technically less achieved manner, noticeable in the less careful
setting of the rows of tesserae. These two heads, which are real portraits, were made by
the same mosaicist and at the same time . The bishop's head is slightly smaller than
those of his immediate companions, but this was probably dictated by the need to fit the
inscription Maximianus into a limited space above him. Further complicating matters, the
top of the neighboring deacon's head (Ills. 19), the emperors crown (Ills. 17), and the
beginning and end of the bishop's inscription have all been remade, with smaller tesserae
than the ones used originally (Ills. 22).
In spite of an extremely prominent location, the person squeezed between the emperor and
the bishop, made at the same time as the latter's head, was not planned from the start.
This is demonstrated by the fact that the mysterious character, unlike the others, lacks
feet as well as the lower part of his garment, and further by a gap between the emperor
and the bishop where this figure's white-clad body ought to be (Ills. 22). Unlike the
missing feet of the generic guards in the back rows, the missing lower part of this
figure, who was important enough to be placed between the emperor and the bishop, can be
explained only by his having been inserted as an afterthought to the original
composition. The differences between the heads made with stone tesserae and the others
strongly suggest a last-minute change. They concern two central characters, one of whom
was a controversial newcomer, Maximian, who had his name inscribed above his head to make
his identification unmistakable.
At present there are two main reasons for dating these two figures to a restoration
phase, which was close in time to the creation of these mosaics. One reason is the
compositional oddity that represents the official in an awkwardly confined position, with
no trace of a lower body and with very narrow shoulders that are out of proportion with
his head and with the other figures. The second reason is the difference in materials.
Stone dominates both of these figures' faces (Ills. 13, 21), instead of the glass used in
the faces and hands of all the other characters (see Justinian's face in Ills. 17 and his
hand in Ills. 23) and even in the hand of the bishop himself (Ills. 24). The reasons for
discontinuing the use of glass paste for flesh tones in the restoration phase are still
not clear, but one possibility is that the white and pale-colored glass was more
expensive than stone .
It seems, therefore, that the head of the bishop was replaced, but not most of his body
or his hand, which is made with the same glass-paste tesserae as that used for the other
hands in both panels. At the same time of this alteration, the inscription Maximianus was
fitted in above the bishop's head and the official behind him was carefully added, but
without a lower body to correspond to his upper body because the original composition
left too little room for him. These two heads, which belong to the restoration of the
mosaics, appear not to have been part of the original mosaic surface, and the same is
true of the inscription.
Before proceeding further, we need to date the San Vitale mosaics, which, as we have
seen, had a restoration phase. The original phase evidently did not include Maximian,
because the technical considerations outlined above indicate Maximian's head and
inscription were added later. Since the bishop's garb is original, the original figure
was presumably an earlier bishop of Ravenna. Yet he was not much earlier, because the
figure of Justinian was part of the original mosaic and was unaccompanied by any
Ostrogothic king. It follows that the mosaic was put up after imperial forces entered
Ravenna in 540 . That narrows the possibilities for the original bishop of Ravenna to
just one: Maximian's immediate predecessor, Victor.
Let us begin with the man to the emperor's right and the woman to the empress's left. As
the people just following the emperor and empress in their processions, they are the
second-ranking personages in the panels. One might therefore guess that they were the
highest-ranking man and woman in Ravenna. For this reason they have occasionally been
identified as the imperial commander-in-chief of Italy, Belisarius, and his wife,
Antonina . In 544 Belisarius was about forty-five and Antonina about sixty, ages that fit
well enough with the faces. Thus, the mosaic probably dates between 544 and 545, around
the time of Bishop Victor's death. This appears to be the date when the building of San
Vitale was essentially complete. Victor did not consecrate it, however, presumably
because he died before he considered it ready. It follows that Maximian contributed
little if anything to building the church or to decorating its apse. Yet much of the
mosaic decoration of the rest of the sanctuary should be his, because it belongs to the
restoration phase that was apparently begun after Victor's death and can scarcely be
later than Maximian's inscription and his consecration of the whole church . Bishop
Victor won his place in these prestigious panels because San Vitale was after all his
church. Victor may have felt a special need to emphasize his loyalty to Justinian and
even to Belisarius, because he had been consecrated bishop under the Ostrogoths when they
were already at war with the emperor and his general. Yet the main initiative behind the
selection of figures for the mosaics presumably lay with Belisarius and Antonina.
In altering the mosaic, Maximian's main purpose was doubtless to promote his own
authority in Ravenna. This mosaic, after he had altered it, reminded his brood that
Maximian had the backing of the emperor, the empress, and of both of the emperor's chief
officers, Belisarius and John the Nephew of Vitalian . Beyond this, substituting
Maximian's head for Victor's allowed Maximian to lay claim early in his tenure to a
church that he had seen to completion, although it had actually been built and, in large
part, decorated under his predecessors. From the start, Maximian showed great energy in
altering and finishing the buildings of earlier bishops. In San Apollinare in Classe, for
example, he radically changed the original program of mosaic decoration and had the
present mosaics finished quite quickly .
It follows that the original designer of the imperial panels did not mean to give
Justinian twelve companions representing the twelve Apostles, since originally those
companions numbered eleven . Nor did the designer add Maximian's inscription to give the
bishop prominence in the mosaic, since his inscription was not part of the original
composition and was added later to serve a different purpose. (Although we cannot be
absolutely sure that Maximian's name was not substituted for Victor's, such a label seems
out of keeping with the rest of the original panels, and Victor would probably have
expected his portrait to be recognizable by itself.)
Only now does the significance of the mosaics become fully apparent. And it will be
realized how intimately the different works are interconnected. Moses, as well as the
just offerers, alludes to the emperor. As Moses, upon God's command, had made and adorned
the Tabernacle, so Justinian had built and sumptuously furnished the church of San
Vitale, and, like Melchizedek, he presented the sacrificial offering at the altar. But
the imperial portraits must also be related to the great central composition in the apse
(Ills. 3). The connection between the emperor-portraits and the central mosaic is
obvious. As Ecclesius, the founder of the sanctuary, stands ready to receive the same
award as that which is tendered Vitalis, so the sovereigns, as the primary benefactors of
the church, will be rewarded for their sacrifice. Again it is the liturgy which gives
particular significance to this thought.
The entire cycle of mosaics thus culminates in the apse of San Vitale, where the
sacrifice offered by Justinian as emperor and priest is shown to be judged and accepted
on the last day. The scene is the supreme vindication of Justinian's administration, all
the more moving since Christ, whom he is shown confronting, appears himself as an emperor
in the act - dear to the religious imagination of the age - of bestowing the wreath of
glory to the winner in the agon .
If texts can be misread, art is even more susceptible to misinterpretation. Today, some
scholars seem to want to believe in a Byzantium that idealized its rulers and cared above
all for politics. The sources seem rather to show a society that valued the rulers, if it
valued them at all, mostly for the practical benefits they could present . The reality
behind an idealized image of power was often weakness; attempts to glorify figures in
authority often masked their actual insecurity and unpopularity.
Bibliography
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