Impressions

    Along the green plain in the early morning, you meet foliage of trees emerging from the charming and thin mist, which gradually rises up to show a sun now veiled, now bright.
    So appear reddish towers and walls, of that ancient colour of terracotta patterned by time.
    Imposing but elegant constructions are silhouetted against the sky, with their ancient battlements that tell the stories of lords and of the people.
    The squares illustrate the life of cities, their social and common path, with their time and their ways, patterns, designs, realities.
    The compact masses of the buildings open themselves, revealing to visitor their hearts of wonders.
    The churches celebrate glories Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque in a continuity of art and beauty, which transmits both concern and comfort.
    The long and endless beaches of fine and clear sandy are signed by paces of many ages, experiencing the spirit of the time, toyed by gentle waves of the Adriatic.
    The glassy and gilded stare of the splendor of Byzantine mosaics spreads over enchanted admirers, telling the stories of many civilizations overseas.
    You can penetrate then into the hills, up to the Apennines, meeting villages and castles, full of promises and teeming with art and precious traces.
    We proceed this way, as knights of the past along the streets that heard the sound of the ancient Romans, and then of many peoples, with their parades of wagons and proud coaches.
    Voices of courtiers still seem to be pursuing in the echoes and signs of courtyards, cloisters and halls.
    Kings and emperors still print their seal in the testimonies of human ages, which take place now without the border.
   

Basilica of Saint Vitale in Ravenna

    Built in the place where, according to tradition, Saint Vitale was martyred, the Basilica was consecrated in about 547, under Emperor Justinian.
    The central octagonal plan interprets original models of existing large buildings early Christian, and particularly the church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople.
    The body outer, at two rows, contains an octagonal tower (tiburio) higher.
    Two towers, equipped with ladders for access to women's galleries, overlook the narthex at the entrance, which is not aligned with the apse of the basilica, in order to create an effect of bewilderment in the entering faithful .
    The exterior is brick, in contrast with the opulence of the interior decoration, symbolizing the outer earthly poverty against the richness of the spiritual world.
    The inside has a large central area covered by a hemispherical dome, supported by giant fan shaped pillars and eight large arches, one of which is open to the presbytery, while the other seven make great exedras, divided into two tiers of arches on columns.
    The upper order corresponds to the women's gallery, the first order corresponds to the octagonal ambulatory, which turns all around and stops at the presbytery.
    The wonderful mosaic of the environments, which originally covered all surfaces, creates an effect of expansion and undefined space, filling the sight of a golden and thin light, with an extraordinary impression of magnificence.
    The focal point is located on the front of the spectacular presbytery, where two angels hold the cross, likewise at the vault, where four angels hold up a medallion with the sacrificial lamb on a blue background with stylized flowers.
    On the cap of the apse, Christ gives the crown of martyrdom to Saint Vitale, while an angel symbolically offers the church to Saint Ecclesio Bishop.
    Beside the altar are the famous panels depicting the Emperor Justinian and his wife Theodora, surrounded by their courts in all their splendor, with Bishop Maximian, at the ideal ceremony of consecration of the basilica.