aithalia:

→ Church of San Vitale, Ravenna, Italy

The Church of San Vitale is a church in Ravenna, Italy and one of the most important examples of early Christian Byzantine art and architecture in western Europe. The building is styled an “ecclesiastical basilica” in the Roman Catholic Church, though it is not of architectural basilica form. It is one of eight Ravenna structures inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The church was begun by Bishop Ecclesius in 527, when Ravenna was under the rule of the Ostrogoths and completed by the 27th Bishop of Ravenna, Maximian in 546 during the Byzantine Exarchate of Ravenna. [x]