GALLA PLACIDIA AND HER MAUSOLEUM IN RAVENNA: A MASTERPIECE OF ANCIENT MOSAIC.
The Mausoleum of Galla Placidia in Ravenna is one of the most extraordinary monuments of late antiquity, decorated with mosaics of rare beauty. A true «Sistine Chapel» of early Christian mosaic, which is worth visiting at least once in a lifetime.
Next to it once was the Basilica di Santa Croce (Holy Cross), of which few traces remain, and at a short distance away is the Basilica of San Vitale, decorated with other magnificent mosaics. The Mausoleum dates back to the first half of the 5th century AD, between 425 and 450.
According to the most recent studies, the Mausoleum was not built as a tomb for the empress Galla Placidia, who was buried in Rome. It seems that she herself built it as a family shrine or dynastic tomb. For this reason, the three sarcophagi inside are hypothetically attributed to the emperors Constantius III, Honorius and Valentinian III, who respectively were the husband, step brother and son of Galla Placidia.
Later it became a private oratory dedicated to Saint Lawrence the martyr, who is in fact depicted in the lunette in front of the entrance; here the relics venerated by the imperial family were kept.
The building has a Latin cross plan, with four niches oriented towards the four cardinal points. The four natural elements – Water, Fire, Earth and Air – are depicted in the lunettes inside them. As we will see, the number four recurs constantly throughout the building.
The only entrance on the north side has a corridor (dromos) covered by a barrel vault decorated with a blue mosaic, studded with white and light blue rosettes. In the lunette above the door, the Good Shepherd is depicted surrounded by sheep and below him is one of the four natural elements, Earth.
In the lunette on the opposite south side, Saint Lawrence is depicted with the grate, under which a second natural element, Fire, can be seen. On the left there is a cabinet with the four books of the Gospels, on which the names of the evangelists are written. The barrel vault covering the south niche of the latin cross has the same mosaic as the entrance corridor, with white and blue rosettes.
The lunettes of the east and west niches are identical and symmetrical: they depict two deers facing each other, surrounded by vegetal swirls: below them in the the east niche, there is a symbolic representation of Water, while in the west niche is the fourth natural element, the Air, represented by two feathers.
The barrel vaults that cover the east and west niches are decorated with a tuft of acanthus and vine leaf swirls, in which two figures of apostles are inserted; higher up is a circle with the Christogram, the Alpha and the Omega. (Jesus said to the Apostles «I am the Vine» and also «I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end»).
The central part of the Mausoleum, onto which the four niches of the latin cross open, has a square turret covered by a dome on top. The mosaic of the dome has a blue background, studded with golden stars of increasing size; in the center there is the Cross, and in the pendentives the four evangelists are depicted.
In the vertical walls of the turret there are four more mosaic lunettes, each with two Apostles placed on the sides of a central window; below them there is a kantharos with two doves, or a cup with doves drinking water. The doves represent the Holy Spirit and allude to drinking the water of immortality; but they are also a reference to the famous Mosaic of the Doves of Hadrian’s Villa in Tivoli.
In the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia the number four is recurrent, both in the architecture and in the mosaics. There are four arms of the Latin cross, oriented towards the four cardinal points. There are four lunettes, in which the four natural elements are depicted: Water, Fire, Earth and Air. The square turret (four sides) has four other lunettes with four pairs of apostles and four windows. The closed dome that covers the turret has the four evangelists in the pendentives. In two lunettes there are four deers facing each other, in another the four books of the Gospels.
The orientation towards the four cardinal points is similar to that of other ancient tombs, for example the Roman Mausoleums of Caecilia Metella, Augustus and Hadrian (today’s Castel Sant'Angelo), which had a square base podium oriented towards the cardinal points, which supports the circular main building in the shape of a tower.
The square containing a circle was the Etruscan Templum, the sacred and symbolic representation of the world: the square represented the Earth and the circle the Cosmos. This scheme is also repeated in the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, where the square turret (oriented towards the cardinal points) supports and contains the circle of the central dome where the Cross is depicted, which is oriented towards the east, the point where the Sun rises.