When the Allied forces prepared to invade and occupy Italy in 1943, the British Naval Intelligence Division planned four handbooks covering every aspect of the country ‘for the use of persons in His Majesty’s service only’. The first was published in February 1944, five months after the first landings. Packed with diagrams and pull-out maps, it runs to 600 pages describing Italy’s coastal and regional topography at length. The second and third volumes give an account of every element of the country’s history, populations, roads, railways, agriculture, and industry. The final, 750-page volume, published in December 1945, describes the country’s 70 inland and 48 coastal towns. For Ravenna, a small city on the Adriatic coast of northern Italy, the handbook begins with a brief, authoritative statement: ‘As a centre of early Christian art Ravenna is unequalled’.
By the time this description was published, many parts of the city were in ruins. Fifty-two Allied bombing raids during the course of the Second World War had taken their toll, destroying some of Ravenna’s noteworthy, unequalled early Christian art. Bombs intended for the railway station and its sidings had pulverised the Basilica of San Giovanni Evangelista in August 1944. Commissioned by one of the city’s great monument-builders, Galla Placidia, this mid-5th-century church must have been a prime example of Ravenna’s outstanding art. The floor mosaics had already been lost when the building was modernised in the 17th century. But that August the mosaics on the walls, apse, and ceiling were also destroyed as the entire building collapsed.
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Denne historien er fra November/December 2020-utgaven av Minerva.
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ROMAN DISCOVERIES AT ANCIENT AUGUSTODUNUM
More than 230 graves have been uncovered at a necropolis in the French city of Autun, revealing a diverse mix in burial practices over a period of nearly 200 years, as well as luxury grave goods from the 3rd and 4th centuries AD that highlight the wealth of some of its ancient inhabitants.
SHAPING THE WORLD: SCULPTURE FROM PREHISTORY TO NOW
The sculptor Antony Gormley and the art historian and critic Martin Gayford have been talking about sculpture with each other for 20 years.
Amelia Edwards (1831-1892)
“I am essentially a worker, and a hard worker, and this I have been since my early girlhood.”
THE GREAT BEYOND
The ancient Greeks thought much about the dead – how their remains should be disposed of, how their spirits might be summoned, how malignant they could be if unavenged. Classicist David Stuttard brings us face to face with the Greek dead.
INTO THE VALLEY OF THE QUEENS
The Great Royal Wife of Ramesses II, Nefertari, was buried in one of the most spectacular tombs of Egypt’s Valley of the Queens. Well-educated and well-travelled, Nefertari played a crucial part in the political life of the pharaoh, and her importance was reflected through her magnificently decorated tomb. Lucia Marchini speaks to Jennifer Casler Price to find out more.
DEIR EL-BAHRI, 1894
Tensions were already high among the archaeologists, surveyors, and artists of the Archaeological Survey of Egypt in 1891 when an eventful dispute arose on Christmas Eve.
PUSHING BOUNDARIES
When the Etruscans expanded to the south and the vast plains of Campania, they found a land of cultural connections and confrontations, as luxurious grave goods found across the region reveal. An exhibition at the National Archaeological Museum in Naples sheds light on these ancient Italians at the frontier. Paolo Giulierini, director of the museum, is our guide.
CUZCO 'CENTRE AND HEAD OF ALL THE LAND'
Cuzco was the heart of the vast Inca empire, but all changed in the 16th century when the capital was conquered by Spanish invaders. Michael J Schreffler investigates the Inca city, and how it went from the centre of one empire to the periphery of another.
A STUDY IN PURPLE
A tiny speck of purple paint from the 2nd century AD may yield clues to how ancient artists created the extraordinary portrait panels that accompanied mummified bodies into the afterlife.
Rome In The 8th Century: A History In Art
John Osborne CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, £75 HARDBACK - ISBN 978-1108834582
