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Suddenly, as he watched the progress of her work slowly growing beneath the rapid movements of her slender, blue-cold fingers, the idea came into his mind that here might be a favourable opportunity of obtaining what he had much wished to procure when he had been at Ravenna, some drawings of several of the most remarkable of the Mosaics in the churches of San Vitale and St. Apollinare in Classe.
A marble column on a green meadow is all that remains of a once prosperous city. Apollinare in the midst of rice-fields and marshes, and on a clear day the Alps and Apennines. I can imagine nothing more desolate than this solitary church, or the approach to it.
It seems to have been dedicated in honour of S. Martin in 560 by the archbishop S. Agnellus who consecrated it for Catholic worship, and finally in the middle of the ninth century to have been given the title of S. Apollinare by the archbishop John, who asserted that he had brought hither the relics of the first archbishop of the see from S. Apollinare in Classe when that church was threatened by the Saracens.
The road, which it was necessary for her to follow in order to reach St. Apollinare in Classe, is the same for the whole of the distance between the city and the ancient church as that which Ludovico and Bianca would follow to reach the celebrated pine forest.
"There is a young lady," resumed Ludovico, after some minutes of thought, "a friend of mine a young artist engaged in making copies from the mosaics in our churches. I know that it was her purpose shortly to begin some work of this kind at St. Apollinare in Classe.
A marble column on a green meadow is all that remains of a once prosperous city. Apollinare in the midst of rice-fields and marshes, and on a clear day the Alps and Apennines. I can imagine nothing more desolate than this solitary church, or the approach to it.
Apollinare on foot, and who had paused at the gate for the purpose of making some inquiries of the officials there. "Good morning, Signor Pietro. I suppose we are bound for the same place; will you permit me to offer you a seat in my carriage?" said the lawyer. "Thanks, Signor Giovacchino, I shall be glad of the lift. Yes, I suppose we are about the same business, and a bad one it is.
Things on this occasion are to be done handsomely, and a fair Ravennese informed me that a single family had contributed three thousand francs towards a month's vesper- music. It seemed to me hereupon that I should like in the August twilight to wander into the quiet nave of San Apollinare, and look up at the great mosaics through the resonance of some fine chanting.
Apollinare; as far as I can remember," said the Marchese, with a rapid sidelong glance at the lawyer; "but I am convinced the old man is not in his right mind," he added, not without some vehemence; "and it is dangerous to put any faith, or to build at all upon anything that such a person may say.
There is much else of interest in the church: the beautiful crypt with its ancient sarcophagus of S. Apollinare and its columns; the ten great sarcophagi which stand about the church, three of which contain the relics of archbishops of Ravenna; the curious tabernacle at the end of the north aisle.
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