Early Christian Monuments of Ravenna

Beneath modest brick exteriors, Ravenna hides ceilings that blaze with gold. The city served as capital of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century and later as Byzantium's outpost in Italy, and its eight surviving monuments — among them the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia and the Basilica of San Vitale — hold the finest early Christian mosaics in existence. Raised during the 5th and 6th centuries and inscribed by UNESCO in 1996, they fuse Roman tradition with oriental splendour in shimmering glass tesserae.