Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 12.djvu/740

 RAVALLI

662

RAVENNA

1875), HI (1889); Wolfsorubeh, Cardinal Rauscher. Mil dem PortrtUe Rauschers u. einem Facsimile seiner Handachrijt (Frei- burg. 1888).

COLESTIN WOLPSGRUBER.

Ravalli, Antonio, missionary, b. in Italy, 1811;

d. at St. Mary's, Montana, U. S. A., 2 Oct., 1884. He entered the Society of Jesus about 1833. With Fathers Vercruysse, Accolti, and Nobili, Brother Huybrechts, and six sisters of the Congregation of Notre Dame de Namur, he responded to Father de Smet's appeal for the American mi.ssion in 1843, arriving at Fort Van- couver 5 Aug., 1844, after a voyage of eight months. Having made a short stay at the ^Iission of St. Paul on the Willamet (Champoeg, Oregon), where he made a study of the English language, and gave attention to the sick (being skilled in medicine in addition to his many other accomplishments), he joined Father Adrian Hoecken in the spring of 1845 at the mission of St. Ignatius, among the Kalispel (Pend d'Oreille), on the upper Columbia, Washington. After some time he was transferred to the Flathead Mission of St. Mary's on Bitter Root River, western Montana, where he remained until the mission was temporarily aban- doned on account of the hostile Blackfeet in 1850, when, in 1844, he assumed charge of the Sacred Heart Mission established by Father Nicholas Point among the Ccpur d'Alenes (Skitswish) of Northern Idaho. Here he designed and supervised the building of a handsome church which, with its altar and beautiful statues, carved by himself, has been described by a traveller as "a credit to any civilized country". Governor Stevens, who saw it in 1855, saj-s in his official report: "The church was designed by the superior of the mission. Father Ravalli, a man of skill as an architect and, undoubtedly, judging from his well-thumbed books, of various accomplishments". In the general outbreak led by the Yakima in 1856-67 his influence was largely instrumental in holding the northern tribes quiet.

In 1866 Father Congiato, superior of the Rocky Mountain missions, established the old Mission of St. Mary's on the Bitter Root, among the Flatheads, and among those appointed to the station was Father Ravalh, who had been with it at its abandonment sixteen years before. Here he remained until his death.

His finest eulogy comes from a Protestant historian: " Fifty years a Jesuit and forty years a missionary, one of the noblest men that ever laboured in the ranks of the Church in Montana, his fame stands very high in Montana, where a later generation knows more of him than even of Father de Smet" (Chittenden). (See also Flathe.\d Indians; Kalispel Indians; Missions, Catholic Indian, of the United States.)

Chittenden and Richardson-. Life, Letters and Travels of Fr. Pierre Jean de Smet (4 vols., New York, 1905); Shea, Catholic Missions (New York, 1854) ; Stevens Report in Rept. of the Commissioner on Indian Affairs for 1855 (Washington, 1856) ; also article Flathead in Clark, Indian Sign Language (Phila- delphia, 1S85). James Mooney.

Ravenna, Archdiocese of (Ravennatensis). — The city is the capital of a province in Romagna, cen- tral Italy, on the left of the Rivers Montone and Ronco, the confluence of which is at Ravenna, not far from the mouths of the Po. The Corsini Canal, constructed by Clement XII in 1736, connects the city and the wet dock with Porto Corsini, on the Adriatic Sea, which is now five miles away. Ravenna is situated on a vast alluvial plain, partly marshy. A pine grove that begins at a distance of two miles from the city, and extends as far as Cervia, was already famous in antiquity, when it extended to the north as far as Aquileia. This grove was greatly damaged by the winter of 1879-80, and also by a" fire in 1905. The vast plains are cultivated by the intensive system; and the silk industry also flourishes there.

In ancient times, and in the early Middle Ages,

Ravenna was on the coast, the sea forming at this place a lagoon that is shown on the maps of the six- teenth century; the city itself was traversed in all directions and surrounded by natural streams and artificial canals, the most important of which was the Augusta; so that Ravenna resembled \'enice. Until the time of the first emperors, the houses were all built of wood, or on pile foundations. Its geographical position and the prehistoric objects that have been found at the city show Ravenna to be of ancient origin. It increased very much when the Umbrians and the Etruscans took refuge there at the invasion of the Gauls, against whom it allied itself with Rome, at a date that cannot be established with precision, retain- ing its own city regulations. After the Social War, it obtained Roman citizenship (88 B.C.); and having sided with Marius, Sulla deprived it of its autonomy, and annexed it to the province of Cisalpine Gaul. Before crossing the Rubicon, Csesar stopped there, conceal- ing his designs under the apparent concern that he entertained for the creation of a school of gladiators. Augustus recognized the military importance of the city, protected, as it was, on the land side by water, and he made it the second station of the imperial fleet, the first being Misenum, near Pozzuoli.

Around the station of the fleet (classis) there soon sprang up a city which took that name, and which con- sisted of the dockyards and of the houses of employees connected with that place. Classis was surrounded by walls of its own; and thereafter, the Via Ccesarea, which connected it with Ravenna, became flanked with houses on either side, giving rise to the suburb of Caisarea. Tiberius built a common wall around Ravenna and Classis. The chief pubhc buildings were outside the Porta Aurea, among them the amphi- theatre, the temple of Apollo, a circus, baths, and a manufactory of arms. Scarcely any of the buildings of that age are preserved, and the aqueduct of Trajan is completely covered by alluvial deposits; the Porta Aurea was torn down in the sixteenth century; and all that remains of the buildings of Classis are the columns of a few temples, scattered about in diff'erent churches of the city, while some of them were trans- ported to Venice; some sculptures are preserved in the museum (Augustus and his family), or serve to adorn a few churches (San Giovanni in Fonte, San Vitale) ; there is a mosaic pavement which is also of that period. Funereal monuments abound, especially of naval constructors; the most interesting one of them, in the collection of the Museum, is that of the Longidiena family. Thusnelda, widow of Arminius, and Maxbod, King of the Marcomanni, were confined at Ravenna. In 404 this city became the imperial residence, Honorius preferring it to Milan, which was more exposed to the incursions of the barbarians and of Alaric, who was serving in the pay of the empire. At this time Ravenna was adorned with its most famous monuments, secular and sacred, the latter of which have been in great part preserved. Already about 380 Bishop Ursus had dedicated a splendid basilica to the Resurrection of Our Lord (called AnastciMs in the Byzantine period); on its site the present cathedral stands, entirely remodelled in the eighteenth century, the only remains of the ancient basilica being a few sculptures and mosaics, and two sarcophagi, one of which is said to be that of St. Bartianus; there remain only a few fragments of the ambo of the bishop Angellus (sixteenth century).

No vestige remains of the palaces of Honorius, of Ad Launnium, and of Galla Placidia (425-50). Of the churches that were erected under Honorius, there remains Santa Agata, a basilica of three naves, which in 1893 was restored to its ancient form; it possesses a notable ambo, and ancient columns. San Pietro in Classis was torn down in the sixteenth century, to make room for fortifications. Under Galla Placidia there was built the Church of San Giovanni Evangel-