There
are broad streets, with high houses, that once were handsome, palaces
that were once the abode of luxury, gardens that still bloom, and
churches by the score. It is an open gate through which one walks
unchallenged into the past, with little to break the association with
the early Christian ages, their monuments undimmed by time, untouched
by restoration and innovation, the whole struck with ecclesiastical
death. With all that we saw that day,--churches, basilicas, mosaics,
statues, mausoleums,--I will not burden these pages; but I will set
down is enough to give you the local color, and to recall some
of the most interesting passages in Christian history in this
out-of-the-way city on the Adriatic.
Our first pilgrimage was to the Church of St. Apollinare Nuova; but
why it is called new I do not know, as Theodoric built it for an
Arian cathedral in about the year 500. It is a noble interior,
having twenty-four marble columns of gray Cippolino, brought from
Constantinople, with composite capitals, on each of which is an
impost with Latin crosses sculptured on it. These columns support
round arches, which divide the nave from the aisles, and on the whole
length of the wall of the nave so supported are superb mosaics,
full-length figures, in colors as fresh as if done yesterday, though
they were executed thirteen hundred years ago.
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