Paradise and power, San Vitale

San Vitale, begun c. 526–27, consecrated 547, Ravenna (Italy).
A conversation with Dr. Steven Zucker and Dr. Beth Harris

[giubilanc]

So much richness, warmth, with a perfume of cultural, historical knowledge and meaning in your voices. Thank you so much for this content.

🌹Beth & Steven

[Paulco]

What a towering work of art. Incredible to see and wonderfully narrated, as always. Thank you.

[Sasha]

The eastern mosaics blew me away and I was blown away again when you zoomed in on them and I could see how uneven the surfaces are, the different materials used, etc.

I'm in love. This is one I must see for myself someday.

[mehmeh]

Absolutely beautiful photography of San Vitale. The background audio made me feel like I was right there in awe viewing everything while listening to your conversation. Thank you.

[creeproot]

Dear comment section,
if you have a problem with the fact that a free youtube channel about Art History has revisited one of their past videos multiple times, just to improve and tweak the already highly educated and valuable presentation of a priceless 6th century church, which you can watch for free on any device, you have some serious entitlement issues to work on.
Ahh, nothing like livin’ 21st century.

[BenjaminQuinlan]

Wow! Absolutely stunning!
I can’t wait to visit this beautiful church.

[Theodisc]

As ever, delivered in tandem as one so well, and so welcome. I've admired these mosaics in many books over the years but I've never been shown how they are made up in close-up. Very beautiful to behold (now in 4K). _Quel délice_ as might be said in french about all of this.✨
Σας ευχαριστώ και τους δύο. 💙🧿

[charlesfleeman]

I spent a long time visiting San Vitale and all the other mosaic treasures around Ravenna in Fall of 2021. It is a most unique city in this way, and the townspeople cherish their mosaic tradition.

[barrymoore]

As usual, an excellent introduction to and analysis of the chosen subject, and allowing me glimpses of detail of this beautiful ancient monument I've seen nowhere else. One of the special distinctions of mosaic is that the picture or design retains all the splendid effect it had for the first witnesses to encounter it, as this medium does not fade or degrade in the way that paintings very frequently do, so we share in an unusually precise way the aesthetic experience of our forebears, in this case those of a millennium and a half ago.

I do want to challenge the implication made in the historical map at 7:03 that Egypt and Syria had fallen outside Eastern Roman rule until Justinian's reconquests of North Africa, southern Iberia, and the greater part of Italy in the sixth century brought them back into the empire's dominion. Egypt and Syria had remained parts of the Eastern Roman empire throughout the fifth and sixth centuries, and were only lost following the Muslim conquests of the seventh century.

[RenzoColameoIrlanda]

Beautiful presentation. Thanks !!! All the best from Italy to everyone.
Renzo *

[greg]

This same video has been posted three times. Smarthistory has given me a new appreciation for how hard the internet is.

[nathanielscreativecollecti]

It was because of these art history videos that when I visited Venice this month, August 2023, I planned a day trip with my brother to Ravenna. We started at the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, then to San Vitale, then the baptistry Neoniano and bishop's chapel, Dante's Tomb, then both the Basilica di Sant'Apollinare Nuovo and Basilica di Sant'Apollinare in Classe. Visiting so many ancient sacred spaces filled with the art and faith of those past was wonderful. At each location we took the time to look at every mosaic scene and try to find which story was being told. The Moses story in San Vitale was fun to discover for myself without knowing it was there. Ravenna is a beautiful city with good walkable areas and many early churches all close together. There were very few tourists too, a great benefit of a lesser known gem. It was one of my favorite days of the trip. If you are going to Venice, I can't recommend Ravenna enough, absolutely worth it to get away from the crowds to a quiet place for a day. There are even more mosaics there, you could spend 2 days but 1 is enough for most of the highlights.

One curiosity: why is the lettering for the mosaics often skewed while in contemporary inscriptions it is nearly perfect? Were the names often written after the mosaic was already completed?

[lorisuprifranz]

Great video! I have just one little detail that I think you missed:
7:45 the Halo around Justinian and Theodora's Heads had both symbolic meaning and a practical purpose. Justinian wanted a faithful portrait of himself and the Empress to be displayed in San Vitale, but he wasn't going to travel all the way to Ravenna for it. So in the design of the mosaic a circular void was left while two circular mosaic portaits were being made in Costantinople. So when those arrived in Ravenna the only practical way to integrate them with the rest of the composition was with the halos. That's is quite remarkable and it's one of the reasons why these portraits are always used in history books and other publications to represent Justinian and Theodora: they are faithful (only slighlty stylized) and amazingly preserved

[michaelfisher]

it's kind of miraculous that we have those mosaics still standing in the church there is Ravenna. so much of that time was lost everywhere else.

[katieharris]

Beautifully presented. That is one church I have always wanted to visit.

[stevenikitas]

The column capitals strongly resemble those same "basket" forms of Hagia Sophia, but this church predates Hagia Sophia by 5 years.

[marqbarq]

Love when you go to buildings! I would watch this is it was 45 mins long.

[Suite_annamite]

I find it hard to tell the difference between the old mosaic styles coming from Adriatic Italy (be it Venice or Ravenna) and those of the Byzantines: during a May 2017 trip to Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum, I was constantly confusing examples from both of them.

[rustyw]

At 3:22, Dr Harris says "everywhere we see life and that speaks to the idea of the afterlife". Is there a possible alternative explanation, unrelated to Christianity? These are decorative areas unrelated to the main action, so perhaps were inspired/copied from frescoes and mosaics of the "pagan" Roman villas and temples. There are numerous examples in the Museo Archaeologico of Napoli and floor mosaics in Pompeii, Herculaeum, etc.

[JableckiFM]

It's moving away from the classical realism, but notice those tiny details - the unkempt hair of bishop maximian (seems like a reminescence of the old greek / roman portraits realism), eyes colors, clothses and many many more.