Byzantium in Italy: eight UNESCO monuments glittering with the finest mosaics in the western world.
Byzantine Mosaics • Dante's Rest • Adriatic Light
Explore → Get Early AccessMosaic light through alabaster
Five sites, one combo ticket
Direct trains; sites cluster walkably
Romagna’s flatbread, folded to order
Ravenna glitters indoors: eight UNESCO monuments hold the finest early-Christian and Byzantine mosaics in the western world: gold heavens, indigo night skies, emperors in procession. Small city, staggering interiors.
When Rome fell, Ravenna rose: capital of the Western Empire, then of Ostrogoth kings, then Byzantium's Italian seat. Three regimes, one century, and each left mosaic masterpieces the others couldn't match.
Dante died in exile here in 1321 and Ravenna kept him; Florence has begged for the bones for centuries and maintains an empty tomb anyway. The Galla Placidia mausoleum's starry vault reportedly inspired Cole Porter's 'Night and Day.'
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