bare-headed genuflexion on its threshold, Alfieri's passionate prostration at the altar-tomb, and Byron's offering of poems on the poet's shrine-I confess that a single canto of the Inferno, a single passage of the Vita Nuova, seems more full of soul-stirring associations than the place where, centuries ago, the mighty dust was laid. It is the spirit that lives and makes alive. And Dante's spirit seems more present with us under the pine-branches of the Bosco than beside his real or fancied tomb. "He is risen,"-"Behold, I am with you always" -these are words that ought to haunt us in a burying-ground. There is something affected and self-conscious in overpowering grief or enthusiasm or humiliation at a tomb.'-J. A. Symonds.

'Ungrateful Florence! Dante sleeps afar,

Like Scipio, buried by the upbraiding shore;
Thy factions, in their worse than civil war,
Proscribed the bard whose name for evermore
Their children's children would in vain adore
With the remorse of ages; and the crown
Which Petrarch's laureate brow supremely wore,
Upon a far and foreign soil had grown,

His life, his fame, his grave, though rifled-not thine own.'

Byron, Childe Harold.'

When Pope Pius IX. was here in 1857, he wrote in the visitors' book, from Purgatorio xi. 100

'Non è il mondan romore altro ch' un fiato

Di vento, ch' or vien quinci, ed or vien quindi,

E muta nome, perchè muta lato.'

Deux

'C'est à Ravenne que Dante publia son poëme tout entier. mille copies en furent faites à la plume, et envoyées par toute l'Italie. On douta qu'un homme vivant encore eût pu écrire de telles choses, et plus d'une fois il arriva, lorsque Dante se promenait lent et sévère, dans les rues de Ravenne et de Rimini, avec sa longue robe rouge et sa couronne de laurier sur sa tête, que la mère, saintement effrayée, le montra du doigt à son enfant, en lui disant: "Vois-tu cet homme, il est descendu dans l'enfer !"'-Dumas.

The Strada Girotto leads into the Corso Garibaldi, on the opposite side of which is the grand Basilica of S. Apollinare Nuovo, built by Theodoric in 500, as the Arian Cathedral, under the name of 'S. Martino in Coelo Aureo.' When the Gothic kingdom fell, it was consecrated for Catholic worship

by the Archbishop S. Agnellus. In the ninth century, when the relics of S. Apollinaris were transferred hither, it was called by his name. The twenty-four cippollino columns. were brought from Constantinople, and have Byzantine capitals. The roof is of wood. In the nave is the ancient pulpit, covered with curious sculpture. The last chapel on

the left, which has an exquisitely wrought marble screen, sustained by four porphyry pillars, contains the sarcophagus which encloses the relics of S. Apollinaris, a bishop's throne. of the tenth century, and a mosaic portrait of the Emperor Justinian, which once, with that of S. Agnellus, stood over the entrance of the church, The mosaics of the nave are, as a whole, more impressive than any other mosaics in the world.

'These mosaics, executed chiefly between the years 553 and 566, are perfectly unique in their way, though the principal portions, apsis and arch of triumph, have been restored. But the upper walls of the central aisle are still sparkling, from the arches up the roof, with their

original and very rich mosaic decorations. Two prodigious friezes, next above the arches, contain long processions upon a gold ground, which, belonging as they do to the very last days of ancient art, remind us curiously of that Panathenaic procession upon the Parthenon at Athens. On the right are the martyrs and the confessors; they are advancing solemnly out of the city of Ravenna, which is here signified by a magnificent representation of the palace of the Ostrogothic kings, with its upper and lower arcade and corner towers and domes. Through the entrance-gate a gold ground shines forth, as symbol of dominion. On the walls are the female forms of Victory in gay garments; and white hangings, richly decorated with flowers and fringes, ornament the lower arcade. The procession is advancing in slow but well-expressed movement through an avenue of palm-trees, which divide the single figures. All are clad in light-coloured garments, with crowns in their hands. Their countenances are all greatly similar, and are reduced to a few spirited lines, though still tolerably true to nature. The execution is careful, as is also the gradation of the tints. At the end of the procession, and as the goal of it, appears Christ upon a throne, the four archangels around him-noble, solemn figures, in no respect inferior either in style or execution to those in the apsis of S. Vitale. On the left side of the church (that which was occupied by the women) we perceive a similarly arranged procession of female martyrs and confessors advancing from the suburb of Classis, recognised by its harbours and fortifications. At the head of the procession is the Adoration of the Three Kings. Upon a throne, surmounted by four beautiful angels, appears the Madonna-here perhaps first represented as an object of reverence. She is depicted as a matron of middle age, with her right hand raised in the act of benediction; a veil upon her head, which is encircled by the nimbus. Upon her lap is seated the already well-grown and fully-clothed child, also in act of benediction. Of the subject of the Three Kings the greater part has been restored, but a spiritedly expressed and active action is still discernible, as well as the splendid barbaric costume, with its richly bordered doublet, short silken mantle, and nether garments of tiger-skin. Here, as in the opposite frieze, the last portion of the subject is best treated. Further up, between the windows, are single figures of the apostles and saints standing in niches, with birds and vases between them. The dark and heavy shadowing of their white garments, and the stiff and unrefined conception of the whole, certainly indicate a somewhat later period, probably the seventh century. Quite above, and over the windows, on a very small scale, and now scarcely distinguishable, are the Miracles of our Lord.'Kugler.

'On the right hand as we enter, and immediately above the arches of the nave, we behold a long procession of twenty-one martyrs, carrying their crowns in their hands; they appear advancing towards a figure

of our Saviour, who stands with an angel on each side, ready to receive them. On the wall to the left is a like procession of virgin martyrs, also bearing their crowns, and advancing to a figure of the throned Madonna, who, with an angel on each side, appears to be seated there to receive their homage. These processions extend to the entrance of the choir, and the figures are colossal-I suppose about seven or eight feet high; they are arranged in the following order :

'This list of martyrs is of very great importance, as being, I believe, the earliest in the history of Art. It shows us what martyrs were most honoured in the sixth century. It shows us that many names, then held most in honour, have since fallen into comparative neglect; and that others, then unknown, or unacknowledged, have since become most celebrated. It will be remarked, that the virgins are led by S. Euphemia, and not by S. Catherine; that there is no S. Barbara, no S. Margaret, no S. George, no S. Christopher; all of whom figure conspicuously in the mosaics of Monreale at Palermo, executed five centuries later. In fact, of these forty-two figures executed at Ravenna by Greek artists in the service of Justinian, only five-Euphemia, Cyprian and Justina, Polycarp and Demetrius-are properly Greek saints; all the rest are Latin saints, whose worship originated with the Western and not with the Eastern Church.'-Jameson's Sacred Art,' ii. 527.

Close to S. Apollinare, between it and the Strada di Porta Alberoni, is the fragment called the Palace of Theodoric, usually regarded as the only remnant of the famous palace of the Gothic kings, which was afterwards inhabited by the Exarchs and the Lombard sovereigns. The building, however, is early Romanesque-a high wall adorned with arches and columns. Against the lower story stands a sarcophagus which an inscription, of 1564, states to have once contained

the ashes of Theodoric, and to have stood on the top of his mausoleum. This is, however, very uncertain. The palace was ruined by Charlemagne, who, with the permission of Pope Adrian I., carried off its mosaics and other treasures for the decoration of his palace at Ingelheim and his church at Aix-la-Chapelle.

'The fragment which remains enables us to judge of the style of the palace, and it is impossible not to believe that the architect who built it had the palace of Diocletian at Spalatro in his view, so great is the resemblance between the fragment that remains and the Porta Aurea of that building. But it was the first time that small pillars, supported by brackets, had been used in Italy as external decorations; and the first time that small pillars had been introduced as divisions of windows. The great change, however, is in the doorway-which, in classical buildings, had always been square-headed—and which, in this building, is round.'-H. Gally Knight.

To the history-lover this wall will have a special interest as part of the palace where the great Ostrogoth lived, where 'he used to amuse himself by cultivating an orchard with his own hands,' and where he died in A.D. 482.

The barbarian (Herulian) Odoacer was ruling the Empire of the West, when Theodoric king of the Ostrogoths entered Italy, his invasion being the migration of a people, not the inroad of an army. Afte: