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caomhghin's review against another edition
5.0
An excellent author and scholar takes one through the history of Ravenna in its heyday when it was the capital of the West seting it succinctly in its position halfway between the Latin West and the Byzantine East. The author offers a plethora of fascinating detail she has drawn from Ravenna's chronicles and surviving papers.
cupiscent's review against another edition
informative
slow-paced
3.5
(Actual text only 400 pages long - the rest is notes and references.)
This was an interesting survey of the whole "decline and fall of the Roman Empire" period, through the lens of Ravenna, a city of great importance during this period, and not much at all afterwards (which is probably part of what has allowed it to keep as many of its early Christian treasures as it has; yes, it got pillaged for art and building resources, not least by Charlemagne, but there was no need for it to be besieged or bombed later on). It provided a lot of interesting links in the ongoing patchwork of my general historical knowledge (around the fringes of Constantinople history, and of course the foundation of Venice, which replaced Ravenna as the trading port when the Po silted up) and of course highlighted some of the real historical material that inspired Kay's Sarantine duology. It was written in a fairly sprightly fashion, focusing on key historic figures to breathe life into what would otherwise have been quite a dry sifting of history through the scant remaining legal records. I might have preferred more of a thematic approach, one based on the arguments of Ravenna's important (some of which had to wait until the conclusion to really get drawn together) but this is slightly more an academic-leaning book - a survey, as noted - so you get what you get. A solid book on the subject.
This was an interesting survey of the whole "decline and fall of the Roman Empire" period, through the lens of Ravenna, a city of great importance during this period, and not much at all afterwards (which is probably part of what has allowed it to keep as many of its early Christian treasures as it has; yes, it got pillaged for art and building resources, not least by Charlemagne, but there was no need for it to be besieged or bombed later on). It provided a lot of interesting links in the ongoing patchwork of my general historical knowledge (around the fringes of Constantinople history, and of course the foundation of Venice, which replaced Ravenna as the trading port when the Po silted up) and of course highlighted some of the real historical material that inspired Kay's Sarantine duology. It was written in a fairly sprightly fashion, focusing on key historic figures to breathe life into what would otherwise have been quite a dry sifting of history through the scant remaining legal records. I might have preferred more of a thematic approach, one based on the arguments of Ravenna's important (some of which had to wait until the conclusion to really get drawn together) but this is slightly more an academic-leaning book - a survey, as noted - so you get what you get. A solid book on the subject.
dimitri0s's review against another edition
Was above my current level so exhausted me a bit, at the end enjoyed it.
colinandersbrodd's review against another edition
5.0
A rather magisterial history of the city of Ravenna, which was at times a Roman Imperial capital, a stronghold of Greek/Byzantine culture after the fall of the Western Empire, and a fascinating place in terms of its history as well as its more famous art and architecture. Really excellent.
daja57's review against another edition
3.0
Ravenna is a fascinating town. Founded as a safe retreat for the Roman emperors when Rome became vulnerable to barbarian attacks (a little like how Venice was founded as a refuge from later barbarian attacks), and the capital for Theodoric the Gothic king who held it as a more or less independent fief under Constantinople's hegemony it became the centre for the Italian foothold of the Byzantine emperor until it was eventually taken first by the Lombards and later by the Franks under Charlemagne. It thus spent four hundred years being the meeting place for the developing Latinate culture associated with the Roman Catholic papacy and the developing Byzantine culture associated with Constantinople. This culture clash led, as so often, to learning; it was the centre for an important early medieval medical school as well as the city in which Boethius flourished (and later died).
Famous names kept appearing. As well as those above were Byzantine emperors Justinian, Leo the Iconoclast, and Irene, and others including Belisarius and Stilicho, Pope Gregory the Great , Gerbert of Aurillac and "the famous Queen Radegund" who is presumably the same as the saint celebrated in Canterbury's St Radegund's Car Park.
I found it hard going. As with many books such as this, I found that there was too much information. Ravenna is a fascinating city and there are some compelling personalities but to condense four hundred year into as many pages means that the canvas is overcrowded with incident. This happened and then this and then this; it was history as an overwhelming flood.
Furthermore, sometimes the sequencing seemed awry. For example, in chapter 28 Herrin tells us that the death of Johannicis was "monstrous" (when the emperor who ordered it is deposed) but it is not until chapter 30 that we revisit what happened and find out the manner of the death. I was frequently confused.
But in these books there are always little nuggets. I didn't realise that the Lombards were identified by their long bears (longobardi). Nor did I know that, according to the "Anonymous Cosmographer of Ravenna" "the sun does not hide behind huge mountains during the night, or sink belowe the waters of the Ocean, but returns to its seat in the East ... from Germania and Britannia, via the Baltic islands of the Fini, to the Caucasus, Scythia, Sarmatia and the Caspian Gates to Bactrian India." (Ch 27). And the iconoclasts in 726 were prompted by "a terrifying subaquatic volcanic eruption in the Segean [which] threw up a new island between Thera and Therasia ... [in which] monstrous deposits of ash and solid lava were borne to the shores of the Aegean in a tsunami" (Ch 32)
Ultimately I felt that this book failed to do justice to an absolutely fascinating period of history, with the establishment of the Christian church and the early battles for orthodoxy, with the disintegration of the Roman Empire, and with the arrival of the Islamic caliphate.
Famous names kept appearing. As well as those above were Byzantine emperors Justinian, Leo the Iconoclast, and Irene, and others including Belisarius and Stilicho, Pope Gregory the Great , Gerbert of Aurillac and "the famous Queen Radegund" who is presumably the same as the saint celebrated in Canterbury's St Radegund's Car Park.
I found it hard going. As with many books such as this, I found that there was too much information. Ravenna is a fascinating city and there are some compelling personalities but to condense four hundred year into as many pages means that the canvas is overcrowded with incident. This happened and then this and then this; it was history as an overwhelming flood.
Furthermore, sometimes the sequencing seemed awry. For example, in chapter 28 Herrin tells us that the death of Johannicis was "monstrous" (when the emperor who ordered it is deposed) but it is not until chapter 30 that we revisit what happened and find out the manner of the death. I was frequently confused.
But in these books there are always little nuggets. I didn't realise that the Lombards were identified by their long bears (longobardi). Nor did I know that, according to the "Anonymous Cosmographer of Ravenna" "the sun does not hide behind huge mountains during the night, or sink belowe the waters of the Ocean, but returns to its seat in the East ... from Germania and Britannia, via the Baltic islands of the Fini, to the Caucasus, Scythia, Sarmatia and the Caspian Gates to Bactrian India." (Ch 27). And the iconoclasts in 726 were prompted by "a terrifying subaquatic volcanic eruption in the Segean [which] threw up a new island between Thera and Therasia ... [in which] monstrous deposits of ash and solid lava were borne to the shores of the Aegean in a tsunami" (Ch 32)
Ultimately I felt that this book failed to do justice to an absolutely fascinating period of history, with the establishment of the Christian church and the early battles for orthodoxy, with the disintegration of the Roman Empire, and with the arrival of the Islamic caliphate.