THE SARCOFAGO -- from Perkins, "Historical Handbook of Italian Sculpture"

Speranza

ITALIAN marble-workers adorned sarcophagi with ruch rude bas-reliefs as we see in the LATERAN museum at Rome, and about the streets of RAVENNA, but they MADE NO STATUES, and were so inferior to BYZANTINE SCULPTORS that St. Ecclesisus, bishop of Ravenna, had to employ Greek workmen for the construction of the Church of S. Vitale.