The study of Ravenna and its role in late antiquity and beyond has largely focused on its exceptional collection of buildings and their decorations. The city's political and religious history have largely been examined in the context of those treasures, with the only modern monograph on the city's history being that by Mario Pierpaoli (Storia di Ravenna: Dalle origini all'anno Mille [Longo Editore, 2010]). Herrin's new book on Ravenna is the first in modern times to be written in English to focus on its history. More importantly, it offers a detailed account of both the political and ecclesiastical history of this period while arguing that the city had importance beyond that found in its buildings and their decoration.

The book covers the period from the city's designation as the capital of the western half of the Roman Empire during the reign of Honorius in 402 through the reign of Charlemagne, who not only visited Ravenna three times but used it as inspiration for his own palace complex in Aachen, both conceptionally and as a source for building materials for its construction. This period saw the end of the Roman Empire in the West, the establishment of barbarian kingdoms that would eventually evolve into many of the countries of Europe, the Byzantine conquest of Italy under Justinian, the Lombard invasion, and eventually the establishment of the Holy Roman Empire by the Carolingian ruler. It also was a time for continuing doctrinal debates in the church, the assertion of the primacy of Rome, and the growing tensions within the church that would eventually end in the Great Schism between the Catholic West and the Orthodox East.

Throughout the period as these events unfolded, Herrin is keen on demonstrating the significant role of Ravenna as a link between East and West in the Roman period and between Rome and its succeeding barbarian kingdoms in the western part of the former empire. As the title of the book suggests, her argument is that Ravenna was key in the development of the medieval Mediterranean and Europe. In making this case, she breaks from the usual designation of this period as “Late Antiquity,” arguing that that name suggests a decline, and suggests that the centuries are really a period of transformation in which learning and culture continued to advance, notwithstanding the end of the Roman Empire.

The history of the period covered by Herrin's book was first written by a bishop of Ravenna, Agnellus, in the ninth century. His primary interest was in the bishops of the city, including their building activities and dealings with emperors and other leaders. Herrin, as anyone who has written about Ravenna during this period, is very dependent on Agnellus. More than a simple recounting of his text, Herrin uses it as a starting point, bringing in a wealth of other sources to enrich and contextualize his accounts with fresh observations. One important aspect of the ecclesiastical history of this period is how the primacy of Rome was growing in the West. With support of the Byzantine emperor, Ravenna fought to maintain its independence from that hegemony but ultimately came to acknowledge the bishop of Rome as the leader of the church.

In giving equal weight to both political and ecclesiastical history, Herrin presents a full picture of this key city and its place in this transformative world. The writing is clear and engaging, full of new insights and new observations. Her style is such that the non-expert will have no trouble following her narrative; meanwhile, the scholar specialist will find her insights and arguments, with their detailed documentation, a valuable contribution to the study of Ravenna and its role in this period. This is an in-depth study, richly illustrated with color photographs.

Herrin also makes use of the city's monuments to help tell her story, though in a limited fashion. Dealing with art and architectural history sometimes leaves her text on shaky ground. To cite two examples: the church of San Vitale may have been started by Bishop Ecclesius, but very little work had been done before the Byzantine conquest of the city in 540, as shown by the metrology of the building, which is based on a Byzantine foot measurement, as well as by the placement of monograms of Bishop Victor on architectural elements that would have gone in early in the building process. Therefore, an opportunity to examine the church in its role as part of the religious and political policies of the Byzantines towards the city is missed. In linking the design of San Vitale to Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, Herrin states that the span of its dome, one of the great achievements of late antique architecture, was surpassed only centuries later by Michelangelo's dome at St. Peter's, somehow forgetting that his design was based on that of Brunelleschi's dome at the cathedral of Florence, which was done more than a century earlier and was even larger than that of the church in Rome. Herrin's book does offer a very good historical contextualization of Ravenna's buildings, but the reader interested in them should also consult other, more focused studies.

In summary, whatever one's particular interest is, be it political history, church history, or art history, all will find Herrin's book a valuable study of one of the most important cities of this period that will remain the standard for many years to come.