Nothing seems to remain of his tomb or his grave; but the church is full of curious fragments, broken pillars, bits of mosaic, ancient marble panels, beautifully carved, and more than one old sarcophagus. Somewhere there no doubt the dust of S. John Angeloptes awaits the resurrection.
From S. Agata we pass to S. Francesco. This church was founded by S. Peter Chrysologus (429-c. 449) and was completed by S. Peter Chrysologus' successor, the archbishop S. Neon (c. 459). Its first title would seem to have been that of S. Peter Major; we hear, too, that it was called SS. Peter and Paul, and Agnellus in his life of S. Neon calls the church Basilica Apostolorum. The region of the city in which it stands would seem to have borne also the name Regio Aposto lorum, though whether it got the name from the church or the church from it is impossible to decide.[1]
[Footnote 1: The Franciscans conventuals would seem to have possessed the church from 1261 to 1810.]
Unhappily the church has been entirely rebuilt in the eighteenth century, and our interest in it is confined for the most part to the tower, the crypt, the twenty-two columns of Greek marble which uphold the nave, two of which are signed 'P. E.' and four others 'E. V. G.,' and the tombs. The tall square tower dates, perhaps, from the tenth century, the crypt from the ninth, but the columns are of the fifth century. Perhaps the oldest thing in the church is the sarcophagus on the right of the main door which has on its front Pagan sculptures and on its sides Christian. Close to the holy water stoup is a very lovely sarcophagus of the fourth century with reliefs of Our Lord and eight Apostles. The ribs of the cover have as finials the heads of lions; altogether this is a very splendid and noble tomb. In the last chapel upon the right we find the great sarcophagus, still used as an altar, of S. Liberius, bishop of Ravenna (c. 375), "a great man, a never-failing fountain of charity; who brought much honour to the church," according to Agnellus. The sarcophagus dates from the end of the fourth century and is sculptured in high relief.
I shall return to S. Francesco when I consider Mediaeval Ravenna.[2]
At present I would direct the reader's attention to S. Giovanni
Evangelista.
[Footnote 2: See infra, p. 245 et seq.]
This church was originally founded by Galla Placidia herself, in fulfilment of a vow made by her to S. John Evangelist, when, on her way from Constantinople to Ravenna, she was in danger of shipwreck.[3] Agnellus tells us that of old the church bore an inscription to this effect, and he gives it to us: Sancto ac Beatissimo Apostolo Johanni Evangelistae Galla Placidia Augusta cum filio suo Placidio Valentiniano Augusta et filia sua Justa Grata Honoria Augusta, Liberationis penculum marts votum solmentes. The mosaic of the apse of old represented the incident. Unhappily the church was almost entirely rebuilt in 1747, only the tower of the eleventh century and the portico of the fourteenth being left as they had been. The beautiful fourteenth-century door, however, bears above it a relief of that time in which we see Our Lord, S. John Evangelist, Valentinian III., Galla Placidia with her soldiers and her confessor, S. Barbatian, with priests. Below this on either side of the arch of the doorway is a representation of the Annunciation and within the arch itself a relief which recounts the miracle which attended the consecration of the church. For the church of S. Giovanni Evangelista was not only founded in recompense for a miracle, but a miracle attended its consecration. It seems that when the church was to be consecrated no relic of S. John Evangelist was to be had. Therefore the Augusta and her confessor gave themselves a whole night to prayer, and suddenly there appeared to them S. John himself, vested like a bishop with a thurible in his hand, with which he incensed the church. Then when he came to the altar to incense it, and they would have venerated him, he suddenly vanished, only leaving in the hand of the Augusta one of his shoes. This legend, which is represented in relief in the fourteenth-century doorway of S. Giovanni Evangelista, is also the subject of a picture by Rondinelli of Ravenna in the Brera at Milan.
[Footnote 3: See supra, p. 41.]
The church has, as I have said, been ruined by the rebuilding of 1747; but there still remain the twenty-four columns of bigio antico with their Roman capitals, which upheld the old basilica, and in the crypt is the ancient high altar of the fifth century. Something, too, of the old church would seem to remain in the much repaired walls of the apse without.
[Illustration: THE CAMPANILE OF S. GIOVANNI EVANGELISTA]