Mausoleum of Theodoric: An Ostrogothic Royal Tomb in Ravenna
Site at a Glance
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- Italy
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Modern
- Civilizations
- Ostrogothic
- Site type
- Burial
- Remains
- Tomb
On this page19 sections
History
The Mausoleum of Theodoric is an Ostrogothic royal tomb in Ravenna, Italy, commissioned around AD 520 by Theodoric the Great, the ruler who established an Ostrogothic kingdom in Italy after the end of direct Western Roman imperial government. Built during the transition from Late Antiquity to the Pre-Romanesque period, the monument combines Roman construction traditions with distinctive Ostrogothic design and has parallels with contemporary early Byzantine architecture in the Ravenna region.
Foundation under Theodoric
Theodoric intended the building as his future tomb and probably planned it for himself and the closest members of his court. A Latin account describes a monument made from dressed stone blocks and records Theodoric’s search for a huge stone needed to complete it. The structure was erected in the cemetery of the Gothic suburb while the royal court was based in Ravenna. Its builder is unknown, and the mausoleum apparently remained unfinished when Theodoric died in AD 526.
The project was a major architectural achievement for the Ostrogoths in Italy. Its position between Roman and later medieval traditions is expressed both in its centrally planned form and in the use of large, carefully worked limestone blocks. The building also served a commemorative purpose, presenting a permanent royal tomb in a period when Roman political and artistic traditions continued within a new Germanic kingdom.
Byzantine rule and the loss of Theodoric’s burial
Theodoric followed Arian Christianity, a theological tradition that differed from the orthodox Catholic position on the relationship between God the Father and Christ. In late antique Italy, this religious division also carried political consequences. After General Belisarius conquered Ravenna for the Byzantine Empire in AD 540, orthodox Catholic clergy gained control of the city. Efforts were made to suppress Theodoric’s memory and traces of Arianism, and his sarcophagus was removed from the mausoleum as the burial of a condemned heretic.
Medieval monastery and burials
Around AD 1000, the mausoleum became part of a Benedictine monastery dedicated to Saint Mary. Its upper level was adapted as an oratory. The building had once stood near the sea and had a lighthouse attached to it, giving the monastery the name Saint Mary at the Lighthouse. The four-sided lighthouse disappeared by the twelfth century.
During the Middle Ages, the monument became a highly desirable burial place, comparable in this respect to the Pantheon in Rome. Sarcophagi belonging to important people were placed in the crypt, creating a later cemetery beside the original Gothic necropolis. In 1057, people from Ravenna secretly removed the body of Pope Victor II from a funeral procession travelling from Arezzo to his former episcopal see at Eichstatt and buried it in the mausoleum. His sarcophagus was later robbed, and his remains were lost.
Excavation, conservation, and modern interpretation
The monastery was destroyed in the seventeenth century. By the middle of the eighteenth century, flooding had buried much of the lower level in earth, chiefly because of the nearby Badareno watercourse. When the upper level served as the chapel of Saint Mary Rotunda, two external stairways were added in 1774-1776.
Cleaning and excavation to expose the lower level began in 1844 and revealed numerous graves. The crypt was completely cleared in 1918-1919, when ancient wall remains and other relics, including a gold-decorated breastplate, were found near the mausoleum. The eighteenth-century stairways were removed after the excavation, and the present external stairway to the upper level was added in 1927.
In 1996, the Mausoleum of Theodoric was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List with seven other early Christian monuments and mosaics in and around Ravenna. Its importance rests on its distinctive Gothic style and decoration and its status as the only surviving royal tomb of its period. The building now functions as a museum.
The monument also influenced later commemorative architecture. Wilhelm Kreis drew on its ground plan for the Bismarck Mausoleum of 1899 and the Stettin Bismarck Tower, while his Bismarck Towers at Jena and Radebeul show stylistic parallels. In 1912, Wilhelm Wandschneider designed a mausoleum for the Schlutius family at Karow in deliberate reference to the Ravenna building.
Remains
The mausoleum is a symmetrical, centrally planned structure composed of two superimposed decagonal levels. Each side of the lower ten-sided structure is approximately 4.40 metres long, and its symmetry axis runs roughly from west to east, with a deviation of about 10 degrees towards the north. Finely dressed Istrian limestone forms the building. The stone was probably quarried near present-day Vrsar, about 400 kilometres away by land, and the blocks were joined without mortar. The construction follows Roman models while forming a distinctive Ostrogothic work.
Lower level and crypt
Burial chamber
The lower level contains the crypt, or burial chamber. Its interior is covered by a cross-vault, formed by the intersection of two barrel vaults and assembled from numerous carefully fitted stone blocks. A keystone inserted into the vault provides its stability. Four internal recesses are arranged in a cross-like pattern, with one incorporating the entrance. The other three are funerary niches, each about 3.50 metres wide and 2 metres deep, designed to receive sarcophagi.
Exterior niches and windows
Ten arched niches are set into the outer wall of the lower level. Each measures approximately 2.45 by 1.75 metres. One contains the entrance to the crypt, while the original purpose of the other nine remains uncertain. Their arches are secured by hooked stones whose projecting ends prevent movement and give each block a defined place within the masonry.
Five high-set vertical window slits pass through the outer wall beneath the arched niches. A wider window, placed opposite the entrance in a normal position, allowed a standing person to look towards the area in front of the tomb. The nine external niches may have been intended for life-sized statues corresponding to as many as nine sarcophagi that could have fitted within the three internal funerary niches. This interpretation is linked to the possibility that Theodoric wanted a visible image of himself at the mausoleum, following an earlier depiction, probably showing him on horseback, in a now-destroyed mosaic high on the south wall of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo.
Upper chapel and surrounding passage
Chapel and altar niche
The upper level is set back from the lower one and contains a circular, cylindrical chapel. The entrance is directly above the entrance below. Opposite it is an altar niche approximately 1.90 metres high at the centre, 1.50 metres wide, and 1.20 metres deep. Grooves in its side walls held the altar table. A cross-shaped light shaft, a narrow opening admitting daylight through the thick roof or wall, is positioned above the niche.
The niche created a structural weakness in the exterior, so a reinforcement wall about 3 metres wide, 2 metres high, and 85 centimetres thick strengthens this part of the building. The niche once contained a window visible in photographs taken before the First World War, and the opening is now blocked. The chapel’s north and south sides each have three light shafts beneath the dome, in addition to the cross-shaped shaft above the altar niche. A painted cross enclosed by a circular ring occupies the centre of the chapel ceiling.
Passage and decoration
An external stairway and bridge once provided access to the upper level, which is surrounded by a passage or veranda about 1.30 metres wide. The present stairway stands on the eastern side and was added in 1927. One reconstruction proposes that the original stairway may instead have been directly in front of the western entrance.
The floor of the upper level formerly had a surface of Verde antico, an ancient decorative green stone with olive-green colouring and greenish-white and dark-green veins and inclusions. Facing elements once embellished the exterior passage. Recesses in the outer wall held support inserts and related components, and one well-preserved insert survives about 2.28 metres above the passage floor.
Sixteenth-century drawings by Giuliano Sangallo show console-like decorative elements projecting about 30 centimetres from the wall and resting on these inserts. Loggias or arcades along the passage have been proposed, although the shallow recesses and limited width of the passage have also been used to argue that it could not have supported a permanent covered arcade or loggia.
Frieze and monolithic dome
Upper frieze
A broad banded frieze, a horizontal ornamental band, encircles the upper exterior. It is divided into rectangular panels whose repeated decoration consists of concentric rings crossed by diagonal lines descending from them. The pattern is often described as claw-shaped or pincers-shaped and has been compared with motifs in Germanic goldsmithing. Other interpretations identify the rings as curtain runners on a nomadic tent or as round shields with symmetrical studs. The closed rings and central depressions make the curtain-ring interpretation uncertain.
Stone roof
The roof is a shallow, rounded dome carved from one natural-stone block. This monolith is approximately 10 to 11 metres across, about 2.5 metres high and 1 metre thick, and weighs roughly 230 tonnes. Twelve projecting stone handles or corbels form part of the block and probably helped with lifting and positioning it.
The handles have steep, blunt-gabled tops, except for one south-facing handle with a flat upper surface. The fronts carry the names of eight apostles and four evangelists. The name Peter was formerly carved on the flat-topped handle, while another bears the name Paul. The flat platform may have supported a statue.
Traces beside the Paul handle indicate that a spiral stairway and a straight stair rising diagonally to the right may once have been attached to the dome. Their relationship to the original design remains uncertain, since they may instead have belonged to a later square lighthouse built beside the mausoleum. A continuous crack is visible from the chapel. The dome may have been lifted during earlier restoration and replaced too forcefully and slightly out of alignment. It appears to be rotated about 6.3 degrees counterclockwise in relation to the lower structure, although the apparent rotation may also result from placing a twelve-sided dome on a ten-sided base.
Dome projection
A conical projection about 3.75 metres in diameter rises from the dome, with a vertical edge approximately 10 centimetres above the surrounding surface. It incorporates a stone base measuring about 77 by 52 centimetres and 28 centimetres high. The projection and base were carved from the same monolithic block and probably served to attach a symbol or sculpture.
Porphyry vessel and associated objects
Porphyry vessel
A large porphyry vessel stands on the chapel floor. Porphyry is a hard, richly coloured imperial stone valued in Roman and later monumental settings. The vessel is approximately 1.50 metres wide and 1 metre high. It was originally about 3 metres long, with sloping walls around 16 centimetres thick, polished inside and out. Its interior is 65 centimetres deep, and its flat polished floor measures about 2.10 metres long and 70 centimetres wide.
A rounded rim, about 18 centimetres wide, projects roughly 1.5 centimetres beyond the walls. Four reliefs on the exterior resemble large mooring rings, and a projecting open-mouthed lion’s head appears on one long side. The ring designs resemble iron fittings used to secure large ships at quays and may evoke water, a trough, or a bathtub.
The vessel was once built into a structure near the so-called Palace of Theodoric and formerly had a hood-shaped cover, according to an old engraving. One end was later heavily damaged and lowered. Impact hollows and areas of chipping, approximately 20 centimetres across, occur on all sides. It has long been regarded as a possible sarcophagus for Theodoric, but its form and reliefs resemble a bathtub more closely. The tradition identifying it as Theodoric’s tomb rests chiefly on a ninth-century account placing it in the neighbouring monastery, at the foot of the tomb.
Statue and bronze grilles
A gilded bronze equestrian statue carried from Italy to Aachen by Charlemagne has often been identified as an image of Theodoric. It showed a larger-than-life nude warrior on horseback holding a shield and spear, although it may instead have represented the emperor Zeno. The statue was probably displayed before the mausoleum, perhaps on a column, rather than on the building itself.
Charlemagne also brought bronze grilles from Ravenna. Their length, approximately 4.20 metres, is close to the length of a side of the lower decagon, and they have therefore been proposed as former balustrades for the upper passage.
The lower level and roof show less weathering than the upper wall zone beneath the dome. This difference may reflect the use of softer stone in that zone to make the window patterns easier to carve. The surviving masonry, decorative traces, cracked dome, blocked altar window, and excavated surroundings preserve evidence of alteration, flooding, neglect, and conservation across the monument’s long history.
