III., who occupy the see before we come to S. Ursus, who “first began to build a Temple to God, so that the Christians previously scattered about in huts should be collected into one sheepfold."[1] S. Ursus, according to Dr. Holder-Egger, ruled in Ravenna from 370 to 396, and his church was dedicated in 385; but a later authority[2] would seem to place his pontificate later, and to argue that it immediately preceded that of S. Peter Chrysologus, who, the same authority asserts, was elected in 429.  All agree that S. Ursus reigned for twenty-six years, and therefore, if he immediately preceded S. Peter Chrysologus, he was elected not in 370, but in 403; that is to say, in or about the same time as Honorius took up his residence in Ravenna.

[Footnote 1:  “Iste piimus hic initiavit Templum construere Dei, ut plebes Christianorum quae in singulis tuguriis vagabant in unum ovile piissimus collegeret Pastor ...  Igitur aedificavit iste Beatissimus Praesul infra hanc Civitatem Ravennam Sanctam Ecclesiam Catholicam, quo omnes assidue concurremus, quam de suo nomine Ursianam nominavit ... “]

[Footnote 2:  A Testi Rasponi, Note Marginali al Liber Pontificalis di Agnello Ravennate in Atti e Memorie della R. Dep. di St. Pat. per la Romagna, iii. 27 (Bologna, 1909-10).]

However that may be, we must attribute the foundation of a new cathedral church in Ravenna to S. Ursus, for till this day it bears his name, Ecclesia Ursiana, though it appears to have been dedicated in honour of the Resurrection (Anastasis.)

[Illustration:  THE CATHEDRAL (Basilica Ursiana)]

Agnellus gives us a fairly full account of this church, which consisted of five naves divided and upheld by four rows of fifty-six[1] columns of precious marble from the temple of Jupiter.  That the church was approached by steps we learn from Agnellus in his life of S. Exuperantius, for he there tells us that Felix the patrician was killed “on the steps of the Ecclesia Ursiana.”  Both the vault and the walls were adorned with mosaics,[2] which Agnellus describes and which would seem to have covered then or later the whole of the interior; the wall on the women’s side of the church being decorated with a figure of S. Anastasia, while over all was a dome “adorned with various coloured tiles representing different figures.”  When Agnellus wrote (ninth century) this great church was of course standing, but doubtless it had been added to and adorned from century to century, and it is impossible to learn from his description, or indeed any other that we have, what was due therein to S. Ursus and what to his successors.  One of the most splendid ornaments the church possessed would seem to have been a ciborium of silver, borne by columns which stood over the high altar also of silver.  This is said by Agnellus to have been placed there by the bishop S. Victor, who seems to have ruled in Ravenna from about 537 to 544.  It is said to have cost, with the consent