File:Ravenna, a study (1913) (14577428069).jpg

Identifier: cu31924028356396 (find matches)
Title: Ravenna, a study
Year: 1913 (1910s)
Authors: Hutton, Edward, 1875-
Subjects: Architecture
Publisher: London, J.M. Dent New York, E.P. Dutton
Contributing Library: Cornell University Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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to the ecclesiasticalsplendour of her city. We have already seen that she builtS. Giovanni Evangelist a, rebuilt in the thirteenth century,in fulfilment of her vow and in memory of her salvation fromshipwreck. Close to her palace she built another churchin honour of the Holy Cross, and attached to it she erectedher mausoleum, which remains perhaps the most preciousmonument in the city. The church and the monasterywhich her niece Singleida built beside it have perished. But though during the lifetime of Placidia Italy was freefrom foreign invasion, the decay of the western empire, ofwhat had been the western empire, was by no means arrested;on the contrary, Britain, Gaul, Spain, and Africa were finallylost. Two appalling catastrophes mark her reign, the Vandalinvasion of the province of Africa and the ever growing cloudof Huns upon the north-eastern frontiers. Placidias two chief ministers were Boniface and Aetius,either of whom, according to Procopius, had the other not ■^ ^ ^^v 5?
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»^*«-*i.D S«J«» Thk Apse of S. Giovanni Evaxcelista 44 RAVENNA been his contemporary, might truly have been called the lastof the Romans. Their simultaneous appearance, however,finally destroyed all hope of an immediate resurrection ofciviHsation in the West. For Boniface, whose one greatobject was the deliverance of Africa from all sorts of bar-barians, betrayed Africa to the Vandals, and to this he wasled by the rivalry and intrigue of Aetius who, on the otherhand, must always be remembered for his heroic and gloriousvictory over Attila at Chalons which delivered Gaul from theworst deluge of all—that of the Huns. The truth would seem to be that while corruption of everysort, and especially political corruption, was destroying theempire, the importance of Christianity was vastly increasing.The great quarrel was really that between Catholicismand heresy. This was a living issue while the cause of theempire as a political entity was already dead. Placidiacertainly eagerly consid

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