Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

906 30. the visual arts
S. Apollinare Nuovo, demonstrates how the forms and content of early
Christianity were so well established that even a new group entering the
ruling classes was able to manipulate church decorative schemes to declare
and proclaim their own particular aims, ambitions and sectarian beliefs.
Nothing more obviously shows the rapidly achieved maturity of Christian
art than the ability to operate subversively within the norms.
It became a matter of orthodox honour after the reconquest of Ravenna
in 540 to obliterate the Arian atmosphere of this church of Christ – operating,
of course, within the now established visual discourses. The church
was accordingly rededicated, and the patron chosen was St Martin, the
famous bishop of Tours and so-called ‘hammer of the heretics’; at the
same time, various sections of the early-sixth-century mosaics were selectively
picked out and replaced. This work was probably carried out under
bishop Agnellus (557–70). The mosaic images of Theoderic and his court
were removed from their spaces between the columns of the palace façade
– carelessly, though, to the modern eye, since the tesserae of their hands
were left intact on the columns. Another alteration was that a new cycle of
saints was inserted in the central section of the lower register: these were
twenty-six named male Catholic martyrs headed by St Martin on the south
side; on the north side was a procession of twenty-two female martyrs and
virgins. Instead of inserting new representations of the current rulers of
Ravenna in the spaces from which Theoderic was removed, these areas
were left blank. In fact, portraits of Justinian and Theodora had been set
up elsewhere in Ravenna in the newly built orthodox church of San Vitale
(which had originally been sponsored by Julius Argentarius). 48
San Vitale can help to exemplify the stage reached in church decoration
by around 548, when it was dedicated; the architecture was planned and
building may have begun in the 530s, judging from the similarity of the
sculptural style of the capitals with Justinian’s Constantinopolitan showpiece
churches. The mosaic decoration of San Vitale is now (and perhaps
always was) limited to the sanctuary. We retain a very clear view of its
general sixth-century appearance, although a considerable amount of restoration
has been carried out over the surface, and this robs us of certainty
about the precise original treatment of some details. A similar multimedia
use of architectural decoration, using stucco, marble and mosaic (which
may include precious materials like mother-of-pearl), is found in a church
of similar mid-sixth-century date at the head of the Adriatic at Porec
(Parenzo). As a piece of visual organization, the point has already been
made that the mosaic has advanced far beyond Santa Maria Maggiore; the
figures are now designed to be more easily read from the floor of the
48 The information about Julius Argentarius (and his sponsorship of 26,000 solidi) is from Agnellus
xxiv.57, 59: see Mango (1972) 104–5.
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