The Gold in the Mosaics of Ravenna

Abstract

Ravenna, early Christian monuments and wall mosaics express the new ideology of Christian art. The tessellatum reveal that a large variety of materials and colours were used for the execution of the mosaics: glass, glass paste tesserae including those with silver and gold leaf, stone, ceramic, marble, and mother-ofpearl. The beautiful materials are combined with skill and surprising chromatic sensitivity. The tesserae are cut in regular and consistent sizes for the base and others shaped ad hoc as if they were brushstrokes of glass. From the first monuments (Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, Battistero Neoniano) to the second (Battistero Ariano, Sant’Apollinare Nuovo, San Vitale) we can see a change significative and interesting, from the nature represented in all her splendor and naturalism, (acanthus plants, floral candelabras, gardens of plants and flowers, viridarium, (herbs garden), we step by step leave the azure and the blue of the sky to pass to mosaics with golden background. Because the tesserae in gold are the best way, in this period, to show the light of the transcendence, and to show the glory of Christ, the power of the church, and in the monuments of Ravenna we have the most important evidence. In many mosaic representations we can see with great clearness the polemical spirit of anti-Arianism, and a clear affirmation of Catholic Orthodoxy in the town where the Aryan Teodorico, had reigned for thirty years. Many monuments of the V-VI century in Orient were destroyed in the ancient time for ideological and political reasons for this reason Ravenna is a privileged place to follow the changes ideological and stylistic.