In the Archiepiscopal Museum of Ravenna are preserved materials from the ancient Ursine cathedral (4th century), destroyed in the eighteenth century. The “Lapidary Hall,” as the museum was originally called, houses typologically varied materials from different origins: Roman classarii tombstones, sculptures and architectural fragments, capitals, mosaics, steles, sarcophagus fronts, a headless porphyry statue depicting a victorious emperor from the 5th century.
The museum also preserves the famous Maximian’s Throne, one of the most celebrated ivory works known, created by Byzantine artists of the 6th century. On the first floor, the route is chronologically arranged between paleochristian and Byzantine collections, starting from the very Lapidary Hall of Farsetti and adjacent space, where the organization of materials reproduces the original consistency but with a chronological distribution of finds. Two previously unpublished eighteenth-century small rooms adorned with fine stuccoes are now included in the path.
Among the exhibited finds of notable importance are the marble liturgical calendar, the Ambon of Adeodatus with an inscription dated 597, from the church of Saints John and Paul, the marble chapel of Saints Quiricus and Julietta, from the early 5th century, with bas-reliefs on all four fronts; silk fragments and liturgical vestments and the chasuble of Bishop Angelopte, dating to the 12th century. The museum route continues in the archiepiscopal chapel, also called the Oratory of Saint Andrew or Saint Pier Crisologo, built by the will of Pietro II, bishop of Ravenna from 491 to 519. It is preceded by a small archaic room with a barrel vault covered with mosaics, as well as the 6th-century sail vault; the side lunettes are frescoed by the 16th-century Ravennate painter Luca Longhi.
From the oratory, you enter the Salustra Tower, likely a remnant of the homonymous Roman gate from the 1st century AD. Here is kept the bishop Maximian’s chair, a masterpiece of ivory sculpture created by artists influenced by Alexandrian and Byzantine styles.
On the second floor of the palace is the Archiepiscopal Archive, where about 13,000 parchments dating from the 7th century, six papyri including Pope Paschal I’s diploma (819), and an illuminated codex by Giulio Clovio are kept. The rooms exhibit some artworks, including a ‘Madonna and Child’ by Baldassarre Carrari and the ‘Bust of Cardinal Capponi’ by Gian Lorenzo Bernini.
