Ravenna, the Capital Cities

Ravenna in northern Italy has been occupied since at least the 5th century BCE, when a tribe called the Umbri lived in dwellings built on poles over the swampy area. Pliny the Elder said they were considered by some to be the oldest people in Italy, and that their name came from the Greek word for thunderstorm, because they survived the great deluge spoken of in Greek mythology.

They came under Roman control in 89 BCE under Octavian, who built a harbor there on the Adriatic shore. In 408CE, the Emperor Honorius moved his court there from Rome, making it his capital. When Odoacer overthrew Romulus Augustus and the Western Roman Empire collapsed, Odoacer made Ravenna his capital. Then Theodoric attacked Ravenna in 489 and made it the capital of the Ostrogothic kingdom. This lasted until 540, when Belisarius captured Ravenna for the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I, who made it the capital of Byzantine Italy.

Difficulty managing that part of Italy (and attempting to conquer more) from Constantinople caused the Byzantine emperors to rely more on the authority and aid of the pope, who was becoming a powerful landowner due to gifts, but when the Lombards descended into Italy the pope turned to a more local solution: Charlemagne. As a result of Charlemagne's aid, Ravenna became part of the Papal States. It remained part of the Papal States for centuries, until it was incorporated into a unified Italy in the mid-19th century.

During this constant "changing of hands" Ravenna did not lose some of its amazing early architecture. The UNESCO World Heritage Sites List has eight sites in Ravenna, all built between 430 and 549 CE, as well as several other historical sites.

Dante Alighieri retired to Ravenna after being rejected by his home town of Florence for his past actions. There is an annual music festival with operas performed at a theater named for him. Lord Byron, Oscar Wilde, Herman Hesse, and T.S.Eliot all visited Ravenna and wrote poems about it, and Tolkien fans will be interested to know it may have been the "inspiration behind Minas Tirith."

Ravenna did not earn itself an epithet like "The Eternal City" or the "City of Light," but it is sometimes called the "capital of mosaics." I'll be happy to explain that tomorrow.