The Middle Ages
Ravenna became a Byzantine outpost with gold mosaics, Venice traded with Constantinople, and the city-states built cathedrals and town halls in a Gothic of their own, broad and bright.
In Ravenna stand the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, San Vitale and Sant’Apollinare in Classe with mosaics from the 5th and 6th centuries. St Mark’s in Venice, with five domes, was built on the model of the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople.
Pisa Cathedral with its baptistery and bell tower, begun in 1063, shows Tuscan Romanesque in white and grey marble. Italian Gothic became broader and lower than French: the Doge’s Palace in Venice rests on arcades, and Milan Cathedral, begun in 1386, was only fully completed in the 20th century.