Ravenna: San Giovanni Evangelista

Realizing that my last post (the overview) will be at the bottom of list, I am going to post about things that we saw in chronological order. This means that the last things that we saw will be at the top of the blog. See that? Time travel IS possible.

San Giovanni Evangelista is nearest to the train station, which is why we went there first. Being near the trains has had a significant drawback: the church was bombed by the Allies in WW2, and was terribly damaged. It has been rebuilt, and portions of its mosaics have been preserved and are exhibited on the walls. These mosaics are crude, compared to others that we saw later. Their colors are lighter and tend toward grays and earth tones, and the animals and human figures look a bit like children's drawings. But they have a powerful presence, and we liked them very much. They remind me a little of paintings by Matthew Wong, a modern artist that I like.
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​The animal mosaics were placed towards the front of the church, but were roped off so we couldn't get too close to them. 

The four mosaics below might be part of the shipwreck narrative of Galla Placidia, as the plaque describes it. We can't be sure.
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