RAVENNA
A STUDY

BY
EDWARD HUTTON

ILLUSTRATED IN COLOUR AND LINE
BY
HARALD SUND

1913

TO MY FRIEND
ARTHUR SYMONS
IN AFFECTIONATE HOMAGE




PREFACE


My intention in writing this book has been to demonstrate the unique
importance of Ravenna in the history of Italy and of Europe, especially
during the Dark Age from the time of Alaric's first descent into the
Cisalpine plain to the coming of Charlemagne. That importance, as it seems
to me, has been wholly or almost wholly misunderstood, and certainly, as I
understand it, has never been explained. In this book, which is offered to
the public not without a keen sense of its inadequacy, I have tried to show
in as clear a manner as was at my command, what Ravenna really was in the