Palace of Theodoric

Both the location of the former palace and a large part of the ground plan can be gathered from excavations of the remains of foundations and walls carried out by Corrado Ricci in the period between 1907 and 1911 in the garden of the Monghini family and in the adjacent area between the Viale Farini und Via Alberoni.

[1] Ricci identified the building on the basis of lead sewer pipes on which the name of Theodoric was engraved.

The lead pipes revealed by the excavation, along with other finds, are kept in a dedicated room of the National Museum, Ravenna.

Building material was taken from the ruins of Theodoric's palace by Charlemagne, including several columns that he reused in the construction of his Palatine Chapel in Aachen.

The columns, which served mostly as decoration and had no structural role, were removed by Napoleon and displayed in the Louvre.