Basilica of San Vitale

The interior of the dome, with Baroque frescoes from the late 18th century.

The church's construction began in 526 on the orders of Bishop Ecclesius of Ravenna. At the time, Ravenna was under the rule of the Ostrogoths. Bishop Maximian completed construction in 547, preceding Justinian's creation of the Exarchate of Ravenna, which followed his partial re-conquest of the Western Roman Empire.

The construction of the church was sponsored by local banker and architect Julius Argentarius. Very little is known of Julius, but he also sponsored the construction of the nearby Basilica of Sant'Apollinare in Classe at around the same time.[1] A donor portrait of Julius Argentarius may appear among the courtiers on the Justinian mosaic. The final cost amounted to 26,000 solidi[2] equal to 36.11 lbs of gold. It has been suggested that Julius originated in the eastern part of the Byzantine Empire, where there was a long-standing tradition of public benefactions.

The central vault used a western technique of hollow tubes inserted into each other, rather than bricks. This method was the first recorded structural use of terra-cotta forms, which later evolved into modern structural clay tile. The ambulatory and gallery were vaulted only later in the Middle Ages.[3]

The Baroque frescoes on the dome were made between 1778 and 1782 by S. Barozzi, Ubaldo Gandolfi and Jacopo Guarana.[4]

^ Rivoira, Giovanni Teresio (1910). Lombardic Architecture: Its Origin, Development and Derivatives. Vol. 1. trans. Rushford, G.M. London: William Heinemann. pp. 64–65. ^ Kleiner and Mamiya, Gardner's Art Through the Ages, p. 332, ^ Krautheimer, Richard (1986). Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture (4 ed.). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. p. 234. ISBN 978-0-300-05294-7. ^ Basilica of S. Vitale: Justification for the inclusion to the World Heritage List. Archived October 29, 2007, at the Wayback Machine Retrieved on May 30, 2015.