GALLA PLACIDIA. - Daughter of Theodosius I, born around 386; in 402 she followed her brother Honorius, who had become emperor of the West, to Ravenna. Taken captive by Alaric, she was given to his brother-in-law Ataulf, who married her after Alaric's death, perhaps in order to advance claims as a pretender to the empire. When Ataulf was assassinated in 415 by Sigeric, G. P. was received by her brother Honorius at Ravenna and given in marriage to the patrician Constantius (416?). On 8 February 421 Honorius conferred on Constantius and G. P. the dignity of Augusti and raised to princely rank the young Valentinian, son of G. P. After the death of Constantius (September 421 or 422), G. P., perhaps because of a journey to Byzantium, broke with Honorius. She returned to Italy after August 423 in order to secure the rights of succession for her son Valentinian, who had been elevated to the dignity of Caesar by Theodosius II after the death of Honorius.
During the minority of Valentinian III, G. P., from the palace of Ravenna, directed the fortunes of the Western Empire. Intrigues and murders troubled her government until February 450, when she is found in Rome together with Valentinian and his wife Eudoxia. On 22 February, in the presence of the dynasts, Leo the Great delivered a homily in which he alluded to Theodosius II's favoring of monophysite erosion. In consequence of this appeal, Valentinian, Eudoxia and G. P. wrote letters to Theodosius. That of G. P. is particularly spirited, and it is the last trace of her political activity. She died on 27 November of the year 450 and was buried in the imperial mausoleum near St. Peter's in the Vatican.
According to later sources, the body of G. P. would have been transported to Ravenna, to the celebrated mausoleum that bears her name, an outstanding monument of Byzantine art. C. Cecchelli hints at the probability that Constantius, the husband of G. P., was buried in the mausoleum. The name of G. P. is inscribed on the triumphal arch of the basilica of St. Paul in Rome, which she restored in the time of St. Leo the Great.
Bibliography3 works
Giuliano Gennaro
THE MAUSOLEUM OF GALLA PLACIDIA
In Ravenna. To the south it is connected to the narthex of the basilica of S. Croce, which arose in Ravenna around 420; in the second quarter of the 5th century, the chapel was erected that has come down to us through the centuries under the name of the mausoleum of G. P. After the front part of the basilica was demolished in 1602, it is today buried to a depth of almost two meters, as if lost amid the green meadow, made to seem even smaller by the proximity of the Justinian Basilica of S. Vitale. It has a cruciform plan, slightly inclined toward the west, and is surmounted by the central dome, which has terracotta vessels in the haunches and the marble pine-cone at its apex. The exterior, simple in its reddish curtain wall of characteristic, thick bricks, is enlivened in the lower part by blind arches and pilasters resting on a socle that is now entirely underground. The interior, by contrast, in the vaults and lunettes is completely covered with mosaics, still classical in their ornaments and figures, which are among the best preserved in Ravenna and among the most beautiful that early Christian art has left us. The concept of all this mosaic decoration is directed to the funerary cult and to the exaltation of the Cross, which stands out at the center of the dome in a blue sky, sparkling with golden stars. In the pendentives are the symbols of the 4 Evangelists, on the inside the figures of the Apostles. In the lunette above the door, Christ the Good Shepherd, who in Io. 10 said of himself: "I am the door of the sheep... whoever enters through me will be saved." In those of the side arms, amid golden foliage, the deer at the spring, and, in the lunette opposite the entrance, a depiction that has been and still is the most debated in its interpretation. St. Lawrence or Christ the Judge? For most, it represents the holy Roman deacon, in a white tunica clavata, with the Cross and the book, standing before the gridiron of his martyrdom and a cupboard containing the 4 Gospels. For all those, however, who in the mosaic cycle of this chapel see nothing but the unfolding of an apocalyptic and eschatological concept — Seston being the latest — it represents the Divine Judge, who through the Gospels will open to the just the way of salvation, while sinners will find on the altar of holocausts (the gridiron beneath which the fire burns) their punishment. Despite all the arguments, the simplest and most obvious interpretation remains always that of St. Lawrence, to whom from the outset the chapel seems to have been dedicated. However, bearing in mind the funerary concept of our mosaics, one may advance the hypothesis that the Old Testament scene, so common in sepulchral art and depicting the Three Youths in the furnace, was here deliberately replaced by that of the Christian martyr victorious over fire, who through this victory has reached heaven and glory. In the small "monasterium" which the ancient documents call that of St. Lawrence, of Sts. Nazarius and Celsus, and finally also of Sts. Gervasius and Protasius, was G. P., who died in Rome on 27 Nov. 450, ever buried? It is very difficult to prove; indeed, everything seems to favor the negative thesis. Despite this, the historians of Ravenna, almost unanimously, have always pointed to the great and rough sarcophagus of Greek marble as the tomb of the Augusta, and to the other two, ancient and of good workmanship, one of which is certainly later than the 5th century, as those of her relatives (Constantius [her husband?], Honorius [?], Valentinian [her son]), but of their presence there is no trace in the original pavement of the chapel, and certainly in origin they were not where they now are. - See pl. CXXVIII.
