Apollinare
Nuovo.
Little else remains in the church worth notice except an ancient ambo
under the arcade in the nave and the chapel of the Relics at the top
of the left aisle. This was largely built of ancient fragments in the
sixteenth century. We see there two beautiful alabaster columns with
capitals of serpentine with two small columns of verde antico also
with ancient capitals. The screen is Byzantine. The walls are
ornamented with bas-reliefs and paintings, but above all these we see
there a marvellous portrait in mosaic of the emperor Justinian as an
old man, unhappily restored in 1863. The altar is ancient and above it
is a marble coffer with Renaissance ornaments, upheld by four columns
of porphyry, having two Byzantine and two Roman capitals. On the
Epistle side of the altar here is a marble chair--a Roman thing.
From that splendid and well-preserved church we pass to that of the
Spirito Santo. Unhappily this once glorious building has suffered as
much as any church left to us in Ravenna, for it was almost entirely
rebuilt in 1543 when the portico we see was added to it, and in 1627
was restored and adorned, as it was in 1854 and 1896.
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