From Grado to Venice

In the city of Grado, around the “Patriarchs’ square”, we will see works of architecture, sculpture and mosaic which at one and the same time are majestic humble, the product of a refined culture fashioned by modest hands. They provide a clear illustration of the unique transitional phase in the second half of the sixth century, a period of a harrowing but clear-cut transition between three ages: that of Rome, already disappeared, that of Ravenna, in decline, and that of Venice, about to start. The group of buildings in Grado includes S. Eufemia with its baptistery and S. Maria delle Grazie, rebuilt and restored by Bishop Elias (571-586). Looking at the plan of the basilica we see side-chapels that are part of the priests’ chambers as well as presbytery with a pergula, or elevated balcony, both important features in the development of the Early Christian basilica. In S. Eufemia, on the other hand, the apses are polygonal on the outside, a vocabulary of the Ravenna type that is new to the Aquileia area. In S. Maria delle Grazie the internal apse flanked by seats (synthronon) marks the high point of a local tradition with a long future.

Inside the churches, the most ambitious parts confirm that it had become obligatory to reuse classical fragments. There are numerous simple or composite Corintihian capitals decorated with drilled fleshy acanthus leaves or scalloped acanthus motifs dating from between the fourth and the sixth centuries. There are also Egyptian capitals, drilled basket capitals from the sixth century and even Ionic capitals from the first century. On the other hand, two kinds of decoration used for the plutei, or marble panels, were produced locally.

One, imbued with a naturalism not lacking in painterly taste despite the intrinsic flatness of its vocabulary, takes the form of blossoming shoots, bunches of fruit, and birds. The second kind of local decoration draws inspiration from more abstract symbolic themes such as the chrismon that was used for anointing, crosses, the kantharos, or drinking cup, peacocks, birds, and borders. In this type of decoration the design sometimes assumes negative weight. Finally, with regard to pavements, the late classical tradition of Aquileia was maintained through the creation of geometric and plant-shaped patterns whereas the great figurative repertory was cast aside. This period is also marked by impoverishment with regard to the colors used in mosaic.

The great political, economic, and cultural crisis of the early Middle Ages was long and tormented. As in Grado, the artistic situation in the Byzantine province of Venetia was inherited, not planned. There is no doubt, however, that its roots go back to the Late Imperial taste of Roman tradition. On the one hand it closed the Costantine period, on the other it introduced a more sober and subdued application of traditional models of provincial life associated with the Venetic cultural world. There are scarcely and noteworthy artistic works of the sixth century in the Venetia that Pliny defined as lying between Chioggia and the Sile estuary, nor in the maritime area close to it. Certainly there is nothing that can be compared to the abundance in Grado (or indeed Concordia and Padua) in the same decades. Nevertheless, amid the first sparks of life in an area that was to become known by the phrase “a Deo conservata Venetiarum provintia (the province of the Venices preserved by God)” are elements that can be interpreted as a continuation of that culture.