The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1916-07-11
THEY HIT RAVENNA
ENEMY AIRMEN DROP ExPLo-
sIvEs ON HISTORIC CITY.
Old italian Town Is Treasure-Trove
for Lovers of Art-Holds Fine
Examples of Byzantine
Architecture.

Forty miles east of Bologna, 20
miles south Of Venice, and 100 miles
southwest of the Austrian naval base
of Pola, says the National Geographic
society, lies the ancient Italian city of
Ravenna, recently bombarded by Aus
trian aircraft. Ravenna, with the pos
sible exception of Rome, possesses
more magnificent examples of eccle-
siastical architecture of the Byzantine
period than any other city in the world.
In art, in literature and in historic sig
nihcance Ravenna is a treasure-trove
for student and traveller Its begin
ming is attributed to the Thessalians,
but there is more tradition than fact
In the accounts of the region over
which 1t held sway until it came under
the jurisdiction of Rome nearly two
hundred years before the Christian
era. 1t was here that julius Caesar
was accustomed to come for his con-
ferences with friends and political adj
visers from Rome during his ten years
Campaign in Gaul
The Importance of the port, which
strongly resembled Venice in its early
days, but which is now six miles from
the Adriatic, dates from the time when
Augustus Caesar designated it as the
naval base of "the upper sea-" its har-
boz being able to accommodate ESQ
ships at a time At that period the
marshy plain which now surrounds
the town at the confluence of the Men
tone and Romeo rivers, was little more
than vast silt bed The houses were
built on piles, and at high tide the sea
formed numerous lagoons, the salt wa
ter so effectively removing the danger
of malaria that the city soon acquired
reputation as health resort, to
which the gladiators of Rome were
sent for training.
Ravenna's golden age came not with
the Augustan era, however, but while
the great Roman empires doom was
being sealed. Honorius and his re-
markable sister, Gala PIacidia. becom-
ing alarmed at the steady advance of
the barbarian forces from the north,
transferred their court from the Eter-
nal city to the Adriatic port, which re-
NAMED the seat of government for
Italy, not only during the few remain
ing years of the Western empire, but
throughout the -ascendancy of the
Greek emperors. Here the Byzantine
viceroys, or exarchs, for the peninsula
made their headquarters until the adj
vent of the Lombards in the eighth
century
Many OF the most fascinating epi-
sodes of history are associated with
the name of Ravenna, such, for ex-
ample, as the tragic story of Odoacer.
who wrested the realm of Italy from
Orestes, in ats, and then waged bitter
war against Theodore the Ostrogoth,
for many years. finally being shut up
In Ravenna, where he withstood a
siege of three years. At length Odoa-
Ger capitulated with the understanding
that he and Theodore should divide
the kingdom equally between them
To celebrate the compact a magnifi-
cent banquet was spread in famous
laurel grove, and here while the two
rulers Toasted the Ostrogoth with his
own hand slew his royal rival.
During the famous battle of Raven
ma, in 1912, the picturesque CASTOR de
Folk completely routed the Spaniards
under Cardona, but threw away his
own life in the excitement of victory.
1t was in this battle that a Captain
Fabian, emulating the exploit of the
legendary Swiss hero, Winkelried, see
ing that his men could not break
through the wall of Spanish spears.
raised his long pike high over his
head and brought it down crosswise
with crushing force upon the oppos-
ing arms, thus sacrificing his own life,
but making small gap in the enc
my's line, through which his own men
rushed
Two names which shine In the gar
land of Ravenna's renown are those of
ltaly's greatest poet and one of the
four great epic writer's of civilization.
Dante and Lord Byron. It was in Ra.
VIENNA that the founder of the modern
Italian language died in 1921, and here
his body is treasured in an urn, be-
meath square-domed tomb. Byron.
during his Italian sojourn, lived in this
city for two years. being attracted not
merely by the famous Pineto (pine
woods), five miles to the south, but
by the charms of the Countess Guic-
cioli. Nor should it be forgotten that
in the adjacent marshes Anita, the
heroic wife of the Italian liberator,
Garibaldi, died of fatigue during her
fight from the French in 1S49.