{"id":1467,"date":"2016-01-09T23:33:03","date_gmt":"2016-01-09T22:33:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ravennacityguide.it\/en\/?p=1467"},"modified":"2016-03-31T14:37:42","modified_gmt":"2016-03-31T12:37:42","slug":"mausoleum-of-theodoric-the-legend-of-the-barbarian-king","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ravennacityguide.it\/en\/mausoleum-of-theodoric-the-legend-of-the-barbarian-king\/","title":{"rendered":"Mausoleum of Theodoric – The legend of the Barbarian King"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The most peculiar thing is that the dome is one piece of marble of Dalmatia, and those who say having measured it assured me that it measures 10.76 meters in diameter per one meter thick and it weights at least 250 tons: it is a nice piece and the circular shape that has been given to it must be the reason why today we call it the Round.<\/em><\/div>\n

(Aubry de La Montraye)<\/em><\/p>\n

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The legend says that the great Gothic king Theodoric was predicted that he would have died because of\u00a0a\u00a0lightning strike. To overcome this adversity, the king ordered the construction of a place where he could seek\u00a0refuge in every rainy day, a place protected and indestructible covered by a dome so powerful that it\u00a0would\u00a0never be tarnished. But the prophecy, which is most<\/div>\n
incisive than human will, took over and came true\u00a0anyway: in a rainy night a lightning fell from the\u00a0sky and tore the big dome, spearing to death Theodoric who\u00a0had taken refuge inside.<\/div>\n
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Theodoric, after defeating Odoacer, king of the Roman Empire, reigned over Ravenna from 493 to\u00a0526 A.D. beginning the period of Gothic domination.\u00a0The barbaric dynasty had a great influence in our\u00a0city\u00a0so that Ravenna got the nickname \"City of Theodoric\". It was a flourishing period in which many buildings\u00a0that still enhance our city were built such as the\u00a0Arian Cathedral (now Church of the Holy Spirit), the Arian\u00a0Baptistery and the church adjacent to the Imperial\u00a0Palace (now Sant'Apollinare Nuovo), nearby a building\u00a0that is erroneously called Palace of Theodoric but\u00a0it actually is a unique piece of pre-Romanesque\u00a0architecture almost certainly dated after the domination of the Gothic king.<\/div>\n
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However the most important monument tied to Theodoric is certainly his Mausoleum that was built shortly\u00a0after the 520 A.D.. Built with Istrian stone, the\u00a0building is an impressive sarcophagus more\u00a0than 15 meters high and featuring two superimposed\u00a0orders: the bottom cell is decagonal and it recalls\u00a0to the\u00a0Roman tradition as inside it features a Greek cross\u00a0plan and it was probably a place for worship or to\u00a0contain\u00a0the graves of Theodoric's family members; the higher order, reachable through an iron staircase added\u00a0to the\u00a0monument in 1927, has a circular room of Germanic derivation inside, with one niche that houses a red\u00a0porphyry basin which perhaps contained the body of\u00a0the king who died in Ravenna in August 526 and whose\u00a0remains were removed during Byzantine domination.<\/div>\n
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The most interesting part of the mausoleum is the single-piece dome, on which it is clearly visible the crack\u00a0that gave rise to the legend and that probably was\u00a0caused instead by a collision during its\u00a0laying. The giant monolith was commissioned by Theodoric himself as a symbol of power and it is\u00a0still the largest monolith ever used as a dome.<\/div>\n
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The building is a meeting between the Roman world and the Barbarian one, a petrified expression of what\u00a0Theodoric tried to achieve during his reign. Despite the legend tells of his inglorious end, Theodoric\u00a0was able\u00a0to recover the stability and the splendour of the past and brought years of peace and prosperity in Ravenna.<\/div>\n
He was able to bring together and make co-exist peacefully two populations, Romans and Barbarians, which\u00a0were very different from each others, keeping separate laws, religious worship and customs.<\/div>\n
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Over time the mausoleum was left to decline and incorporated in other buildings: for instance the church of\u00a0Santa Maria della Rotonda, built in the Ninth century, that borrowed the name from the circular dome\u00a0(rotonda means round). The early works to separate\u00a0the building are dated 1719, while in 1809 was carried\u00a0out the first restoration that brought back the Mausoleum to its initial state. Since 1996 it is part\u00a0of world\u00a0heritage monuments protected by UNESCO and today it\u00a0is surrounded by a beautiful stretch of green called\u00a0Theodoric Park.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>
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