Sparkling Ravenna Mosaics
Italy's Great Monuments
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52m
Join me for this video lecture which will explore the fascinating history of Ravenna, Italy. A history that shaped the city’s most recognizable artistic marvels, its glorious mosaics. No medium better embodies the glory and mystery of the Byzantine Empire than does this painstaking technique of inserting tiny-colored-glass tiles—or tesserae—into wet plaster to produce figurative and decorative imagery. In fact, the basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna houses the world's most famous mosaic depicting the Empress Theodora.
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