After the war of 1218 the Traversari family was able to impose its rule in the city, which lasted until 1240. The city is inland, but is connected to the Adriatic Sea by a canal. After a short period under an Imperial vicar, Ravenna was returned to the Papal States in 1248 and again to the Traversari until, in 1275, the Da Polenta established their long-lasting seigniory. The Church of St. John the Evangelist (San Giovanni Evangelista) was almost totally destroyed in World War II and has since been heavily restored. One of the earliest of Ravenna’s extant monuments is the mausoleum of Galla Placidia, built in the 5th century ad by Galla Placidia, the sister of the emperor Honorius. Afterwards, the city formed the centre of the Byzantine Exarchate of Ravenna until the invasion of the Lombards in 751. According to tradition, it was occupied by the Etruscans and later by the Gauls. However, in 409, King Alaric I of the Visigoths simply bypassed Ravenna, and went on to sack Rome in 410 and to take Galla Placidia, daughter of Emperor Theodosius I, hostage. Odoacer became the first barbarian king of the western empire. [9] In AD 402, Emperor Honorius transferred the capital of the Western Roman Empire from Milan to Ravenna. It was later the capital of the Kingdom of the Ostrogoths and the Exarchate of Ravenna until 751. Ravenna (/rəˈvɛnə/ rə-VEN-ə, Italian: [raˈvenna], also locally [raˈvɛnna] (listen); Romagnol: Ravèna) is the capital city of the Province of Ravenna, in the Emilia-Romagna region of Northern Italy. The first time it became capital of the Western Roman Empire in the 5thcentury AD, then under the reign of Theodoric, king of the Goths, and lastly of the Byzantine Empire in Europe, up until the 8th century AD. At that time, the construction of imperial churches and palaces started. Ravenna greatly prospered under Roman rule. A short-lived bid for independence on Ravenna’s part in the mid-12th century was followed in the 14th and early 15th centuries by the rule of the da Polenta family, a noble house of the Romagna region. Only those of the highest ranks in Roman society could be drawn from to provide the leaders required for this fleet and most would have come from the … A.P.D. Ravenna Airport is located in Ravenna. The fame of Ravenna rests instead on the quality and quantity of its 5th–8th-century Christian monuments. During the fourth century c.e., the Roman Empire came constantly under the assault of barbarian tribes. The oldest church in Ravenna, the cathedral, was originally built in 370–390 but was destroyed in 1733 and immediately rebuilt. Ravenna has an important commercial and tourist port. Ravenna was important in history as the capital of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century ad and later (6th–8th century) of Ostrogothic and Byzantine Italy. Theuderic made Ravenna the capital of the Ostrogothic kingdom, but in 540 Ravenna was occupied by the great Byzantine general Belisarius and was subsequently made an imperial exarchate. Various Ostrogothic military leaders took the Kingdom of Italy, but none were as successful as Theodoric had been. From 540 to 600, Ravenna's bishops embarked upon a notable building program of churches in Ravenna and in and around the port city of Classe. Overview. At the end of the fourth century, as the power of Rome faded and Constantinople became the seat of empire, a new capital city was rising in the West. Updates? It was initially populated by Umbri, Etruscans and Gauls. Ravenna enjoyed a period of peace, during which time the Christian religion was favoured by the imperial court, and the city gained some of its most famous monuments, including the Orthodox Baptistery, the misnamed Mausoleum of Galla Placidia (she was not actually buried there), and San Giovanni Evangelista. In 49 BC, it was where Julius Caesar gathered his forces before crossing the Rubicon. During the Marcomannic Wars, Germanic settlers in Ravenna revolted and managed to seize possession of the city. During that period of wealth and prestige, several c… Afterwards, the city formed the centre of the Byzantine Exarchate of Ravenna until the invasion of the Lombards in 751. Shortly after his appointment, Orestes launched a rebellion and captured Ravenna, the capital of the Western Roman Empire since 402, on 28 August 475. The Church of St. Francis (San Francesco) has a small annex containing the tomb of the Italian poet Dante Alighieri. The Fall of Rome/Fall of the Roman Empire marked a pivotal point in human history and ended Roman power in the west 1,000 years after the city’s foundation. The Roman emperor Justinian I and his empress-wife Theodora sought to restore the Roman empire to its old glory and maintain Ravenna as the ‘fulcrum of energies’ that connected Goths, Ostrogoths, Franks and Romans to the Byzantine peoples, and the Roman popes in Rome to the Roman emperors in Constantinople. Odoacer ruled as King of Italy for 13 years, but in 489 the Eastern Emperor Zeno sent the Ostrogoth King Theodoric the Great to re-take the Italian peninsula. Although it is an inland city, Ravenna is connected to the Adriatic Sea by the Candiano Canal. The story is not, she emphasises, one of decline, but of rebirth, for Ravenna established what … Adjoining the cathedral is an octagonal baptistery containing fine Byzantine mosaics from the 5th century. Ravenna after the Collapse of the Western Empire City of Goths and of Byzantium Ravenna is instrumental in understanding the evolution of the Western Empire after the sacking of … The earliest inhabitants of Ravenna were probably Italic peoples who moved southward from Aquileia about 1400 bc. Ravenna is a place with a truly prestigious past, even though you may never have heard of the city before. This article is about the city in Italy. It was the capital city of the Western Roman Empire from 402 until that empire collapsed in 476. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). The Roman emperor Augustus built the port of Classis, about 3 miles (5 km) from the city, and by the 1st century bc Ravenna had become the base for Rome’s naval fleet in the Adriatic Sea. It was returned to the Papal States in 1814. In ancient times the Adriatic lay nearer Ravenna, which rested on … The exarchate was broken up by revolts and invasions after 726. 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