Galla Placidia (386 - 450 AD), sister of the Roman Emperor Honorius who had transferred the Capital of the Western Empire from Milan to Ravenna in 402 AD, built this little Mausoleum with a Latin cross plan around 425-450 as her own resting place. However, the mausoleum was never used for that purpose, because the empress died and was buried in Rome in 450.Now a separate building, the mausoleum was once connected to the south side of the narthex of the closed Church of Santa Croce, erected by Galla Placidia in the second quarter of the V Century.The outside of the building is very sober compared to the magnificence of the inside, decorated with mosaics made even brighter by the golden light filtering through the alabaster windows. The lower surfaces of the interior are covered with marble slabs, while the upper part of the building – including the walls of the vault, the lunettes, and the cupola - is entirely decorated with mosaics. The themes represented in the mosaic decoration show traces of the influence of both Hellenic-Roman and Christian tradition and aim at representing the victory of eternal life over death from different perspectives.