SAN VITALE 

     The church of San Vitale is Byzantine in style, including its art and architecture. Byzantine art and architecture is very distinct from other styles. Their notable aspects include golden backgrounds instead of colorful realistic backgrounds and not much detail in faces. These aspects can be seen throughout the church and the mosaics covering almost every inch of the building.

     The Vitalis altar on the third exedra of the central octagon area can be compared to a grave or a ‘pozzo’ meaning pit. This could possibly trace back to the location where Vitalis was tortured or to the spot where he was buried. There is now an altar on his grave site, which is covered in mosaic art along with the rest of the church. According to Mariëtte Verhoeven, “San Vitale, with its double-shell octagonal plan and gallery, is obviously a local variant of the Justinian architecture in the Eastern capital and so it is the most ‘Byzantine’ building in Ravenna.” [5] San Vitale was built in the Age of Justinian, which “certainly represents the high point of Early Byzantine architecture.” [6]

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5. Mariëtte Verhoeven. The Early Christian Monuments of Ravenna: Transformations and Memory. Vol. 1. Turnhout, BE: Brepols Publishers, 2011, 134.

 

6. Cyril A. Mango. Byzantine Architecture. New York: H.N. Abrams, 1976, 97.