Sant’Apollinaire Nuovo, Ravenna
Your hands brush marble, feel impelled
To touch where crisp cold tesserae
Compose a fine array
Of arches that once held
A gallery of courtiers with gifts they gave
A throne in mosaic palace down a long cool nave.
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Note: Mosaics of Theoderic the Great (454-526AD) and his court were removed as heretical from Sant’Apollinaire’s decorative mosaics by order of Justinian, except for three hands left on columns in the palace arcade.
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