..." And he goes on to say that
it was found from an inscription that "King Theodoric made this church
from its foundations in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ."[1] It got
the name of _Coelum Aureum_ perhaps from its glorious roof of gold.
This, however, was destroyed in 1611.
[Footnote 1: Cf. also Agnellus, _Liber Pontificalis_, Vita Theodori,
cap. n.]
The church has indeed suffered very much in the course of the fourteen
hundred years of its existence, and yet in many ways it is the best
preserved church in Ravenna. In the sixteenth century, for instance,
it was fast sinking into ruin; the floor of the church and the bases
of the columns were then more than a metre and a half beneath the
level of the soil, and it was decided that something must be done if
the building was to be saved. In 1514 this work was undertaken; the
columns were raised and the arches cut and thus the church and its
great mosaics were preserved. It is, however, still sinking; the new
pavement of the sixteenth century has disappeared, and that of 1873
which was brought from the suppressed church of S.
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