He brought the sarcophagus to the cathedral for his own tomb and there I suppose he was buried. The sarcophagus upon the left was likewise used in 1321 as a tomb for himself by the archbishop, Rainaldo Concoreggio. This, too, is sculptured with a bas-relief of Christ, a nimbus round His head, a book in His hand, seated on a throne set on a rock, out of which four rivers flow. With outstretched hand He gives a crown to S. Paul, while S. Peter bearing a cross holds a crown, just received, in his hand. The sculpture on the sarcophagus of S. Barbatianus is ruder.
The high altar is of course modern, but within it is an ancient marble sarcophagus of the sixth century, in which it is said the dust of nine bishops of about that time lies.
But one noble thing remains here among all the modern trash to remind us of all we have lost: the glorious processional cross of silver called of S. Agnello. Yet even this, noble as it is, does not come to us from Roman or Byzantine times it seems, but is rather a work of the eleventh century.
In the midst of this great cross, upon one side, is the Blessed Virgin praying, and upon the other Christ rising from the tomb. Upon the arms of the cross, and the uprights, are forty medallions of saints, of which three would seem to be archbishops. I say this beautiful and precious thing comes to us from the eleventh century; but it has been very much restored at various times and is now largely a work of the sixteenth century. Dr. Ricci tells us that on the side where we see the Madonna only the five medallions on the lower upright and the two last of the upper are original; while upon that of the Risen Christ, only the five medallions on the lower upright are untouched, all the rest is restoration.
Beneath the eighteenth-century apse of the cathedral is the ancient crypt, no longer to be seen; it does not, according to Dr. Ricci, date earlier than the ninth century nor do any of the other crypts in the city.
In the left aisle a few fragments from the old church remain recognisable. They are the marble slabs of an ambo erected by S. Agnellus, archbishop of Ravenna in the middle of the sixth century. There we read: Servus Christi Agnellus Episcopus hunc pyrgum fecit. Among these are some earlier panels of the fifth century. In the treasury, again, we find two other panels from the ambo of S. Agnellus, and a strange calendar carved upon a slab of marble to enable one to find the feast of Easter in any year from 532 to 626; this is certainly of the sixth century.
A certain number of Mediaeval and Renaissance things are also to be seen in the church. Here in the treasury we have a cross of silver gilt, with reliefs of the Crucifixion, God the Father, the Blessed Virgin, S. John Baptist, and S. Mary Magdalen, dating from the middle of the fourteenth century (1366). Over the entrance to the sacristy is a fresco by Guido Reni of Elijah the prophet fed by an angel. Within, is a good picture by Marco Palmezzano: a Pieta with S. John Baptist; while the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament is decorated by him and his pupils.
It is obvious, then, that very little remains to us of the original Basilica Ursiana; nor can we reckon among that little the beautiful round and isolated campanile. This is not older than the ninth century, and has been much tampered with, especially in the sixteenth century, after an earthquake, and in the seventeenth century after both earthquake and fire. Indeed, the upper storey dates entirely from 1658.
As it is with the cathedral, so it is with the Arcivescovado. Of the old palace of the Bishops of Ravenna only a few walls, a tower, and a wonderful little chapel remain. What we see now is work of the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries after a restoration at the end of the nineteenth. The old vast palace which has been destroyed was the work of many archbishops, achieved during many centuries. It consisted of a series of buildings grouped about the palace which the archbishop S. Peter Chrysologus built in the fifth century, and its most magnificent part was due to S. Maximian, archbishop of Ravenna in the time of Justinian. All their work, which we would so gladly see, is gone except the little chapel of S. Peter Chrysologus, which he built and signed in one of the arches in the fifth century.[1]
[Footnote 1: According to Rasponi the chapel was dedicated originally to S. Andrea and is to be identified with the Monasterium di S. Andrea, which was not built by S. Peter Chrysologus (429-c. 449), but by Peter II. (494-c. 519). Cf. Rasponi, Note Marginali al Liber Pontificalis di Agnello Ravennate (Atti e Memorie della R. Dep. di Stor. Pat. per la Romagna, iii. 27), Bologna, 1909-1910.]