removed in the sixteenth century, as was the ancient apse in the
eighteenth. The original apse, however, was ruined in an earthquake,
as Agnellus tells in his life of S. Agnellus, in the sixth century,
and of the atrium only a single column remains _in situ_ before the
church. The campanile, a noble great round tower, dates from the ninth
century for the most part, its base is, however, new. The portico
before the church is a work of the sixteenth century, as is the
facade, which nevertheless contains certain ancient marbles, among
which are two inscribed stones, one of the fourth century and the
other of the eleventh.

When Theodoric built this great and glorious church he dedicated it to
Jesus Christ. It seems to have been dedicated in honour of S. Martin
in 560 by the archbishop S. Agnellus who consecrated it for Catholic
worship, and finally in the middle of the ninth century to have been
given the title of S. Apollinare by the archbishop John, who asserted
that he had brought hither the relics of the first archbishop of the
see from S. Apollinare in Classe when that church was threatened by
the Saracens.

The oldest name by which the church was generally known, however, is
that of _Coelum Aureum_. Agnellus in his life of the archbishop S.
Agnellus says, speaking of the Catholic consecration of the church,
"Then the most blessed Agnellus the bishop reconciled within this city
the church of S. Martin Confessor, which Theodoric the king founded,
and which was called _Coelum Aureum_...." And he goes on to say that
it was found from an inscription that "King Theodoric made this church
from its foundations in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ."[1] It got
the name of _Coelum Aureum_ perhaps from its glorious roof of gold.
This, however, was destroyed in 1611.

[Footnote 1: Cf. also Agnellus, _Liber Pontificalis_, Vita Theodori,
cap. n.]

The church has indeed suffered very much in the course of the fourteen
hundred years of its existence, and yet in many ways it is the best
preserved church in Ravenna. In the sixteenth century, for instance,
it was fast sinking into ruin; the floor of the church and the bases
of the columns were then more than a metre and a half beneath the
level of the soil, and it was decided that something must be done if
the building was to be saved. In 1514 this work was undertaken; the
columns were raised and the arches cut and thus the church and its
great mosaics were preserved. It is, howeve