[Footnote 1:  S. Andrea was, according to Rasponi, op. cit. ut supra, the same as the chapel of the Arcivescovado called S, Pier Crisologo.]

But astonishing though these churches are which Theodoric built by the art and hands of the Italians during the generation of his rule in Ravenna, they would not impress us with the strength and importance of his personality and government, as undoubtedly they do, if we had not in his mausoleum perhaps the most impressive late Roman building left to us practically intact in all Italy, a thing which, quite as much as the mightier tomb of Hadrian, assures us of the enormous vitality of Roman civilisation, its weight, endurance, and unfailing continuance through every sort of disaster and misgovernment.

This mighty monument is situated upon the north-east of the city, perhaps upon the old Roman road the Via Popilia.  That it was built by Theodoric himself might seem certain.  For though it has been said that it was erected by Amalasuntha the Anonymus Valesii tells us that Theodoric built it before he died.  “While yet he lived he made a monument of squared stone, a work of marvellous greatness, covered with a single stone.”  It is perhaps of little consequence to whom we owe this mighty tomb, for it is absolutely, and in any case, Roman work, and might seem to have been modelled upon the far larger and more tremendous mausoleum of Hadrian.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Choisy points out that the mausoleum of Theodoric has stylistic affinities with Syrian work, and Strzygowski, who reminds us that several bishops of Ravenna were Syrians, thinks that Ravenna in much derived from Syria especially from Antioch.]

The mausoleum is built in two stories of block after block of hewn and squared stone.  The lower of the two stories is decagonal and has in every side a vast archway or niche, one of which forms the gateway.  Within we find a huge cruciform chamber lighted by six square openings.  The upper story, now reached by two stairways, built with ancient materials in 1774, is circular, having about it eighteen blind arches and over it a vast circular roof hewn out of a single block of Istrian stone that weighs, it is said, two hundred tons.  It may be that this upper story, smaller as it is than the lower, was of old surrounded by a colonnade, and it may be that the twelve projections upon the vast monolith of the roof once upheld statutes of the twelve Apostles.  We do not know.[1]

[Footnote 1:  On the other hand, these projections are thought by many to have been used as rings for the ropes by which the roof was hauled up an inclined bank of earth into place They each bear the name of an Apostle, and are similar to the small abutting arches round the dome of S. Sophia at Salonica]