Ravenna - Italy

Today i've received this beautiful unesco card, a new unesco from Italy. Thanks Katja "maggiolino". This is the S. Vitale Basilica, one of the eight early Christian monuments of Ravenna are inscribed on the World Heritage List.

"The Church or Basilica of San Vitale is the most famous monument of Ravenna and is one of the most important examples of Byzantine Art and architecture in western Europe.
The church was begun by Bishop Ecclesius in 527, when Ravenna was under the rule of the Ostrogoths, and completed by the 27th Bishop of Ravenna, Maximian in 548 during the Byzantine Exarchate of Ravenna.
The church has an octagonal plan. The building combines Roman elements (the dome, shape of doorways, stepped towers) with Byzantine (polygonal apse, capitals, narrow bricks, etc). However, the church is most famous for its wealth of Byzantine mosaics, the largest and best preserved outside of Constantinople itself. The church is of extreme importance in Byzantine art, as it is the only major church from the period of Emperor Justinian to survive virtually intact to the present day; furthermore, it is thought to reflect the design of the Byzantine Imperial Palace Audience Chamber, of which nothing at all survives." - in: wikipedia