The effect of all this splendour is even to-day very lovely and glorious; what it might have been if it had been properly cared for instead of “restored” we can only guess.  Unhappily the “restoration” has been very radical.  Even in the central Baptism, the head and shoulders and right arm of the figure of the Saviour, the head and shoulders and right arm, the right leg and foot of the Baptist and the cross in his his left hand have been destroyed and the whole dimmed and even spoiled.  Such as it is, however, where shall we find its equal or anything to compare with it?

From the cathedral group we now turn to the other churches which were built in the time of the old empire in Ravenna for the most part, in the days, that is, of Galla Placidia and her son Valentinian III.

Among these is the church of S. Agata (entrance Via Mazzini 46), which though entirely rebuilt, with its campanile, in the later part of the fifteenth century is since the “restoration” of 1893 interesting, if at all, because the church dates originally from the fifth century.  It would seem indeed that it was founded in the time of the Augusta, and to this the walls of part of the nave bear witness, but it was continued later perhaps by the archbishop Exuperantius (c. 470) whose monogram appears upon the second column to the left in the nave, and finally completed or in part rebuilt in the sixth century.  In the fifteenth century (1476-94), the church was largely rebuilt again, but its tribune with its great mosaic remained till 1688 when it fell.  In the sixth century it would seem to have had an atrium or narthex.  Its main interest for us to-day lies in the beauty of its columns of bigio antico, cipollino, porphyry, granite, and other marbles belonging to the original church, with their Roman and Byzantine capitals.  Also to the right of the nave we see a curious ambone hollowed out of a fragment of a gigantic column of Greek marble.  The altar, too, is formed from an ancient sarcophagus which is said to hold the dust of the two archbishops, Sergius, with whom the pope had so much trouble, and Agnellus.  According to Agnellus the chronicler there was a portrait of the archbishop S. John Angeloptes in the apse, but this like the great mosaic of the tribune is gone.  It was here, however, that S. John got that strange surname of his—­Angeloptes.  He and his predecessor S. Peter Chrysologus with S. Maximian and Sergius were the great archbishops of this great see.  We hear that the emperor Valentinian III., according to Agnellus—­but we should place the bishopric of S. John Angeloptes 477-494—­“was so much affected by the preaching of this holy man that he took off his imperial crown and humbly on his knees begged his blessing....  Not long after he gave him fourteen cities with their churches to be governed by him Archieratica potestate.  And even to this day (ninth century), these fourteen cities with their bishops are subject to the church of Ravenna.[1] This bishop first received from the emperor a Pallium of white wool, just such as it is the custom for the pope to wear over the Duplum; and he and his successors have used such a vestment even to the present day.”