What the panel shows
On the left wall of the apse in San Vitale, twelve men stand in a row against a gold background. At the centre is Justinian, in a purple cloak fastened with a jewelled brooch, wearing a crown and a halo. He holds a large gold dish, a paten, used for the bread at Mass. The halo did not mean that he was a saint: it marked the sacred authority of the emperor.
To his left stands the only figure named in the mosaic: Bishop Maximian, with a cross in his hand and his name written above his head. Maximian had consecrated the church in 547, and his prominence tells us who was responsible for the final decoration. Two clergymen beside him carry a Gospel book and a censer.
On the emperor’s right are two officials and, behind them, soldiers with spears and a shield marked with the chi-rho, the monogram of Christ. Who the officials are is debated: suggestions include the generals Belisarius and Narses and the banker Julianus Argentarius, who paid for the church. None is named, so these identifications remain hypotheses.
An emperor who never came
Justinian ruled from Constantinople from 527 to 565 and never travelled to Ravenna, which his armies had taken in 540. The mosaic was a way to make him present in the city’s most important new church. It shows him taking part in the liturgy, bringing his gift in a procession, as he did in the churches of the capital, including Hagia Sophia. The message to the people of Ravenna was clear: church and empire stood together, and the emperor was the church’s protector.
Theodora and her court
On the opposite wall, the empress Theodora stands under a shell-shaped niche, wearing a heavy jewelled collar and a crown with long pendants, and holds a gold chalice for the wine. On the hem of her purple cloak are embroidered the three Magi bringing gifts to Christ, a clear parallel to her own offering. Beside her, an official draws back a curtain at a doorway, and her ladies follow in rich patterned robes.
Theodora was one of the most powerful women of her time. She came from a humble background, had been an actress, and married Justinian before he became emperor; she ruled at his side from 527 until her death in 548. The historian Procopius, in a hostile private text known as the Secret History, attacked her past, but his official works describe her courage during the Nika riot of 532. In San Vitale she appears as Justinian’s equal, with the same halo.
Where to see it
The two panels are in the presbytery of San Vitale in Ravenna, on the walls either side of the apse, best seen from the area in front of the altar.
Sources
- Opera di Religione della Diocesi di Ravenna, “Basilica di San Vitale”.
- Smarthistory, “San Vitale and the Justinian Mosaic”.
- Procopius, Wars 1.24 and Secret History (on Theodora).
- D. M. Deliyannis, Ravenna in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, 2010).
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