Basilica di Sant'Apollinare Nuovo

Sant'Apollinare Nuovo is an early Christian basilica built in 505 AD by Theoderic the Great as an Arian court church adjacent to his royal palace in Ravenna. After the Byzantine reconquest of the city in 540, large sections of the original mosaic program were quietly revised — figures associated with Theoderic were replaced with palms and saints, making this one of the most tangible acts of pictorial censorship surviving from late antiquity. The interior preserves two of the finest mosaic friezes of the early medieval world: along the north wall, a procession of 22 martyrs advances toward Christ in shimmering gold, while 22 virgins process toward the Virgin Mary on the south wall. Light filtering through small arched windows bathes the nave in warm gold, lending the mosaics an almost weightless luminosity. The church forms part of Ravenna's UNESCO World Heritage ensemble of early Christian monuments.