370 Johnson
probably paintings done on wood panels using the encaustic technique of the
type that survive from the Faiyum region in Egypt, but which are mentioned in
other late antique accounts.
The church of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo, located to the west of (but close by)
the excavated palace was the palace chapel of the complex. Agnellus reported
seeing this inscription in the base of the apse: “King Theoderic made this
church from its foundations in the name our Lord Jesus Christ”.60 Its dedica-
tion to Christ recalls that of the palace chapel built by Constantine in the Great
Palace at Constantinople.61 Agnellus also mentions a baptistery associated
with the church, though its remains have not been identified.62
The church is a basilica that seems to have been largely modelled on the
nearby church of San Giovanni Evangelista. Originally preceded by an atrium,
its nave is 21 m wide and twice as long at 42 m, with twelve columns on either
side separating it from the side aisles. The original apse, destroyed in the 17th
century in order to enlarge the sanctuary, was semicircular on the inside and
polygonal externally. Like the buildings of the Arian cathedral complex, the
walls of the church are constructed of reused brick in various sizes and colours
ranging from yellow to red. One unusual detail is a raised course of brick that
frames the windows on the exterior wall in the guise of moulding. The only
parallel to this detail is found in the carved mouldings found in the stone
churches of the 5th and 6th centuries in Syria.63 Inside, the columns, capitals,
and impost blocks are of imported Proconnesian marble (Figure 14.13).64
The nave walls are decorated with colourful mosaics: some from the period
of Theoderic; some from the reconciliation of the church to the Orthodox tra-
dition following the Byzantine conquest of the city. Each wall is now divided
into three zones, having lost a zone about 1.25–1.50 m high just above the
arcade when the level of the floor of the church was raised without short-
ening the columns. At the top, alternating with the clerestory windows, is a
Christological cycle set in small rectangular panels. The middle zone contains
a series of saints, apostles, and prophets depicted individually dressed in white
tunics with red clavi. Some of the figures hold books, others hold scrolls, and all
have a halo, but none is identified with inscriptions. Both of these zones were
completed in the time of Theoderic. On the north side the lowest zone depicts
60 Agnellus, Liber Pontificalis 86, ed. Delyiannis, p. 254; for this and other Theoderican
inscriptions see Guerrini, “Theodericus”.
61 Johnson, “Theoderic’s Building Program”, p. 85.
62 Agnellus, Liber Pontificalis 89, ed. Deliyannis, p. 256.
63 As noted by Russo, Architettura, 45.
64 See Harper, “Provisioning of Marble”.