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Name |
C. Marius |
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Activity |
Roman politician |
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Notes |
Ravenna erects a statue in his honour, probably with reference to the battle of Campi Raudi where he defeated the Cimbri and the Teutons, who were already very close to the town. |
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Name |
Caesar |
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Activity |
Roman politician |
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Notes |
Ravenna was a faithful base for the control of the Cisalpina so much so that it was used also as a base for the civil war against Pompeius, which started with the crossing of the Rubicon. |
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Name |
Octavianus Augustus |
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Activity |
Roman politician |
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Notes |
After having been in Ravenna, following Caesar and for the Civil wars against Caesar’s killers and Antonius, he reaches the power and chooses Ravenna’s harbour as a base for one of the two Imperial fleets appointed head of the control of the Mediterranean, ordering to realize one of the hugest harbours of antiquity. |
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Name |
St. Apollinaris |
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Activity |
Missionary |
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Notes |
According to tradition he was sent by Saint Peter to evangelize Ravenna and Emilia. He died as a martyr at the beginning of the II cent. A.D. At present scholars believe that he lived between the III and the IV cent. A.D. |
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Name |
Honorius |
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Activity |
Emperor |
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Notes |
Following his military collaborators’ advice, when Alaric and the Visigoth approached in 402 A.D. he moved the capital from Milan to Ravenna, where he died in 425 A.D. |
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Name |
Stilicho |
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Activity |
Roman soldier of barbarian origins |
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Notes |
He is one of the main protagonists of the decision to move the seat of the Western Empire to Ravenna. He carries out his activities here until his death, in the year 408 A.D. by order of Emperor Honorius. |
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Name |
Constant |
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Activity |
Roman soldier |
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Notes |
Following several successes gained during various campaigns, in 419 A.D. Emperor Honorius invites him to Ravenna and offers him his sister Galla Placidia as a bride. The future Emperor Valentinian will be born from their union. Constant dies suddenly in Ravenna in the year 423 A.D. |
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Name |
Galla Placidia |
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Activity |
Princess |
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Notes |
After the death of the Visigoth king Ataulphus - who had married her - in 416 A.D. she comes back to Ravenna where - after some time - she marries general Constant, from which he has a son, Valentinian. After the death of her husband she stays in Constantinople, and in 425 A.D., after the death of her brother Honorius, she comes back to Italy as a regent of her son. Although still a child, he is elected Emperor of the Western Empire. During the 25 years spent in Ravenna she is the protagonist of the political and cultural life of the town, which still bears the traces of her presence thanks to several buildings such as her mausoleum and the church of Saint John the Evangelist. |
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Name |
Valentinian III |
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Activity |
Emperor |
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Notes |
Born in 419 A.D. from Constant and Galla Placidia, after a short stay in Constantinople, in 425 A.D. he comes back to Italy as an Emperor. He keeps this title until his death in Rome, in 455 A.D. |
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Name |
Maioranus |
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Activity |
Emperor |
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Notes |
After the defeat of his rival Avitus near Piacenza and Ravenna, in 457 A.D. he gains the power as an Emperor and obtains the recognition of the Emperor of the Eastern Empire Leon and the support of the barbarian general Ricimerus, who then kills him. |
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Name |
Ricimerus |
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Activity |
Roman soldier of barbarian origins |
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Notes |
Descendant of a German noble family, he exerts a strong power between 456 and 472 A.D., holding the title of magister utriumque militiae (i.e. he was the supreme leader of the western army) which in practise means that he was the real chief of the Western Empire during this period. |
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Name |
Libius Severus |
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Activity |
Emperor |
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Notes |
Rich Lucan senator. He is elected emperor in Ravenna by general Ricimero in 461 A.D. but he spends most of his reign in Rome. |
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Name |
Glicerius |
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Activity |
Emperor |
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Notes |
Formerly a domesticus in the Imperial palace of Ravenna; in 473 A.D. he is elected emperor by the barbarian general Gundobadus, nephew of Ricimerus. |
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Name |
Romulus Augustulus |
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Activity |
Emperor |
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Notes |
He was the son of general Oreste, who raised him to the throne of the Empire when he was still an adolescent in 475 d.C.: for this reason when king Odoacer conquers Italy and Ravenna in 476 A.D., he is saved and confined in a farm in Campania. |
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Name |
Odoacer |
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Activity |
Barbarian king |
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Notes |
After his rebellion to general Orestes, he gains some battles and, in Ravenna, kills Paul, son of Orestes in 476 A.D.: he deposes Emperor Romulus Augustulus and declares himself a king, becoming the master of Italy until 489 A.D., when Theodoric’s Ostrogoths occupy Italy. He is the leader of resistance in Ravenna until when, feeling exhausted, he is obliged to surrender in 493 A.D. |
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Name |
Theodoric |
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Activity |
King of the Ostrogoths |
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Notes |
Ostrogothic king. After several years spent in Costantinople he comes back to his country and leads his people to the conquest of Italy: after several victories he obliges King Odoacer to barricade himself in Ravenna. After a siege which lasted three years, in 490 A.D. he conquers the town and turns it into the capital of his reign, realizing several works of restoration and improvement. He dies in 526 A.D. and is buried in the wonderful Mausoleum which is - still today - dedicated to him and accessible to the public. |
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Name |
Amalasunta |
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Activity |
Queen of the Ostrogoths |
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Notes |
Daughter of King Theodoric and mother of Atalaricus and Matasunta. She grows up in Ravenna according to a more classic than a gothic education: between 526 and 534 A.D, she is the regent of her son and, in practise, the master of Italy. She becomes a queen after the sudden death of Atalaricus, when she marries Theodatus who then orders her to be killed far from Ravenna, the town that she had almost never left. |
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Name |
Justinian |
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Activity |
Roman Emperor of the Eastern Empire |
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Notes |
He is portrayed as an offerer, surrounded by dignitaries and soldiers, in the famous mosaics of the apse of St. Vital’s basilica. |
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Name |
Theodora |
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Activity |
Roman empress of the Eastern Empire |
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Notes |
Bride of Justinian, she is portrayed with a procession of fine ladies and dignitaries in the famous mosaics of the apse of St. Vital’s basilica, opposite to that in which the Emperor is represented. |
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Name |
Belisarius |
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Activity |
Roman soldier |
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Notes |
The most important general of Justianian. In 535 A.D. he is charged to reconquer Italy, tearing it off to the Goths: in 538 he besieges King Vitiges in Ravenna and, after more than two years of siege, he forces him to surrender. At the end of 540 A.D. he returns to Constantinople, full of treasures and of important prisoners and persuaded to have concluded his mission. Nevertheless he is forced to go back to Italy in 545 A.D. to fight against King Totila. This time he finds a completely different situation that obliges him to abandon Ravenna in 548 A.D. |
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Name |
Maximianus |
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Activity |
Bishop |
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Notes |
First bishop of Ravenna. Either in 547 or in 548 he consecrates the basilica of St. Vital, where he is portrayed by Justinian’s side in the apse mosaic. |
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Name |
Vitiges |
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Activity |
King of the Ostrogoths |
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Notes |
He is elected king instead of Theodatus. He orders him to be killed and occupies his place in Ravenna, where he takes possession of the throne and marries Princess Matasunta in 536 A.D.: then he fights against the Imperials but is forced to barricade himself in Ravenna, and after two years of siege, to surrender. He is taken prisoner and carried to Constantinople in 540 A.D. |
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Name |
Julian |
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Activity |
Argentarius (banker) |
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Notes |
Officer of the Imperial palace in Constantinople, he is sent to Italy after Belisarius to run the financial funds of the army and the properties recovered by the Imperial estate: he takes advantage of this situation and thus forms his own properties that he will use to order the construction of the churches of St. Vital and S. Michael in Africisco, consecrated between 547 and 549 A.D. |
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Name |
Narses |
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Activity |
Roman soldier |
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Notes |
Influential member at the court of Emperor Justinian, he is sent to Italy as a military officer in 538 A.D. but he comes back in 539 A.D.: he leaves again for Italy in 552 A.D. with a big army and passes through Ravenna before engaging in battle at Gualdo Tadino, the fight that will give the final victory of the war to the Imperials. Until the year 568 A.D., when he is ordered to come back to Constantinople assuming the title of praefectus Italiae, he is the leader of the peace process in the peninsula and of the first phase of its restoration, which will be interrupted by the invasion of Longobards. |
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Name |
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Activity |
Clergyman |
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Notes |
According to tradition he was the second successor of St. Apollinaris as bishop of Ravenna and suffered martyrdom at the beginning of the II cent. A.D. |
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Name |
Saints Vital, Valeria, Ursicinus, Gervase and Protase |
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Activity |
Christian martyrs |
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Notes |
The Milanese family formed by Vital, Valeria, their sons Gervase and Protase together with the Ligurian doctor Ursicinus suffered martyrdom for ten years between Ravenna and Milan during the III cent. and before the year 311 A.D. The bodies of these martyrs have undergone different traditions. For certain, St. Vital was worshipped in Ravenna starting from the IV cent. and the remains of Gervase and Protase were exhumed in Milan by S. Ambrogio in 386 A.D. |
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Name |
St. Severus |
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Activity |
Clergyman |
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Notes |
According to tradition he was of humble birth but he became bishop of Ravenna in the middle of the IV cent. A.D. in a miraculous way; he participated actively in the struggle against Arianism and soon was considered a saint, so much that the church of St. Severus in Classe became his sepulchre. |
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Name |
Orso |
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Activity |
Clergyman |
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Notes |
During his episcopate, that lasted over twenty years in the first half of the V cent. A.D., he promoted the contruction of the first large cathedral church and the bishop’s palace. He became an important interlocutor of the just settled down Imperial court. |
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Name |
St. Peter Crisologus |
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Activity |
Clergyman |
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Notes |
The first important bishop of Ravenna between 445 and 457 A.D. He was an authoritative referee of Rome and of the Imperial court, as well as a cute theologian as testified by the collection of his Sermones. |
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Name |
Neon |
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Activity |
Clergyman |
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Notes |
During his episcopate in Ravenna, which he carried out around 458 A.D., he promoted the construction of several new churches, among which the Basilica Apostolorum (today’s St. Francis) and the baptistery known ad “Neonian”, as well as the restoration and enlargement of other churches such as the Ursian Basilica. |
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Name |
Severin Boethius |
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Activity |
Roman politician and philosopher |
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Notes |
Roman patrician senator who tried to harmonize Christianity with ancient philosophy on one side and the Roman administrative tradition with the requirements of the Ostrogothic reign on the other. He was indicted as a traitor and put to death near Pavia in 524 A.D. |
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Name |
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Activity |
Roman politician |
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Notes |
Roman patrician senator who carries out a long period of activity as an administrator of Rome and on behalf of the Ostrogoth reign. He always keeps in touch with Constantinople, where he often goes as an ambassador of King Theodoric. Indicted as a traitor, he is taken to Ravenna and put to death in 525 A.D. |
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Name |
Cassiodorus |
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Activity |
Roman politician |
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Notes |
Roman patrician senator, who remained for a long time in service of the Ostrogothic reign and therefore close to King Theodoric and often in Ravenna; following Vitiges’fall he went to Constantinople and, after 552, came back to Italy where he abandoned the political career and founded a monastery. |
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Name |
Ecclesius |
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Activity |
Clergyman |
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Notes |
During his decennial episcopate in Ravenna (523-532 A.D. ca.), he promotes the catholic reaction against the Arian Goths: in these terms he takes part in the legation at Constantinople, 525 A.D., on behalf of king Theodoric that ends with his imprisonment and he promotes the construction of several churches, among which the basilica of St. Vital in collaboration with the banker Julian. |
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Name |
St. John I |
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Activity |
Clergyman |
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Notes |
Bishop of Rome between 523 and 526 A.D.; in 525 he is sent to Constantinople by King Theodoric to invite Emperor Justin to withdraw the anti-Arian decrees, but he fails. When he come back he is imprisoned in Ravenna where, after a while, he is killed. |
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Name |
Ursicinus |
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Activity |
Clergyman |
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Notes |
Bishop of Ravenna between 531 and 536 A.D. He carries on the activity of his predecessor Ecclesio and he also promotes the construction of the church of St. Apollinaris in Classe, in collaboration with the banker Julian. |
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Name |
Theodatus |
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Activity |
King of the Ostrogoth |
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Notes |
Nephew of Theodoric, he was chosen as the successor of Atalaricus by Amalasunta. His lack of action against the Imperial invasion is the cause of his fall and murder in 536 A.D. |
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Name |
St. Barbatianus |
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Activity |
Clergyman |
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Notes |
Bless soul and clergyman from Ravenna. He dies under Bishop Pietro Crisologo and Empress Galla Placidia of whom he was, according to tradition, confessor and counsellor. The bishop founded the church of St. John and St. Barbatian in his honour. |
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Name |
Aspasius of Ravenna |
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Activity |
Philosopher |
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Notes |
He was an exponent of the “Second Sophistic” current. |
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Name |
Saint Illuminata |
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Activity |
Martyr |
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Notes |
According to legend, around 303 A.D., the Ravenna's virgin Illuminata takes refuge in Bertino but she can't escape from her martyrdom. |