[Footnote 2:  Four of those missing, Dr. Ricci tells us, have of late years been discovered, one in the Naples Museum (1893), one in the collection of Count Stroganoff (1903), one at Pesaro (1894), and another in the Archaeological Museum at Milan (1905).]

We shall come upon S. Maximianus again in S. Vitale, where something must be said of him.  He lies, as has already been noted, in one of the great sarcophagi in the second chapel on the right in the cathedral.

From the Arcivescovado we pass to what is now the most remarkable building of the group—­the Baptistery.

Dr. Ricci tells us that it was originally one of the halls of the baths that were near the present cathedral.  But it was converted into a baptistery and ornamented with mosaics by the archbishop Neon of Ravenna (c. 449-459) as its inscriptions tell us and is signed with his monogram.  The original floor is three metres below that we see, and a second floor about a metre and a half above the original floor has been discovered; this it would seem is that made by Neon, while a third remains about half a metre under the pavement we use, and upon this are set the eight columns, with their capitals, two of them Byzantine and the rest Roman, which uphold the arches of the upper arcade upon which is set the great drum of the dome.  The plan is a simple octagon, bare brick without, covered with a “tent” roof of amphorae under the tiles; but within, everywhere encrusted with glorious marbles and mosaics.

It is to the mosaic of the cupola that we instinctively turn first, for it is, perhaps, the finest left to us in Ravenna.  It is divided into three parts.  In the midst is the Baptism of Our Lord on a gold ground.  Christ stands up to His waist in the clear waters of the Jordan, the god of which river waits upon Him.  S. John high up on the bank, his staff, topped with a cross, in his hand, pours the water from a shell upon Our Lord’s head while the Dove, an almost heraldic figure, is seen above About this circular mosaic is set a greater circle in which we see, upon a blue ground, the twelve Apostles in procession, each bearing his crown.  Nothing left to us of that age is finer or more gravely splendid than these mosaics, they seem to be the highest expression of a great art which has known how to reject the brutal realism of an earlier time and to seize perfectly the secret of decoration.  Nothing of the kind more masterly remains to us in Europe.

Beneath these two circles another is set in which are eight panels, each of three parts, where are represented eight temples, four of them with thrones signed with the Cross, and four of them with altars upon which the book of the Gospel is open.

[Illustration:  THE BAPTISTERY AND CAMPANILE OF THE CATHEDRAL]

The whole cupola is borne by the upper arcade, where we see sixteen figures of the Prophets in stucco.  The upper arcade is in its turn borne by the lower, which is everywhere encrusted with mosaics, restorations of our own time.  The walls are panelled with various marbles.  In the midst of the building is a huge octagonal font with its ambo, and in one of the wall niches is an ancient altar, and in another a vase of marble.