A TOMB AT RAVENNA 
“ Morte bella parea nel suo bel viso.”—P etrarch. 
Ravenna belongs—more than any other Italian 
city—to the early ages, when the Christian Church 
was in her first vigour and the Roman Empire was 
tottering to its fall. Her great churches and noble 
tombs had their origin in that troubled period when 
the old order was slowly giving place to the new, 
and the human race was entering on a fresh phase 
in its career. The mosaic pictures of Galla Placidia’s 
shrine, the portraits of Justinian and Theodora in the 
apse of San Vitale, the long procession of virgins and 
martyrs in the nave of S. Apollinare, and the sculp¬ 
tures of the ancient sarcophagi that meet us at every 
turn, all tell the same story. The enthusiasm of 
apostolic days breathes in the types and symbols that 
we see carved in stone or set forth in the jewelled 
tints of mosaic—the Cross of salvation and peacock of 
the resurrection, the Good Shepherd leading his flock to 
rest in the green pastures, the hart no longer panting 
after, but at length tasting, the water-brooks. These 
things make Ravenna unique among the cities of Italy. 
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