Gratiosus (died 23 February 789) was the archbishop of Ravenna from 786 until his death., but she gives the dates 785–788 on p. 223. , gives his dates as to 23 February 788 or 789. , and , give the date range 786–789. , gives 786–789
Andreas Agnellus, in his Book of the Pontiffs of the Church of Ravenna, describes Gratiosus as balding with big eyes and a big neck. Prior to his election as archbishop, he was the abbot of Sant'Apollinare in Ravenna, near the mint and the church of .; . Under his predecessor, John VI, he served as archdeacon. He led the clergy in a dispute with the archbishop, but, owing to a lacuna in the surviving text of Agnellus, it is impossible to tell what the dispute was about.
Gratiosus came to the episcopal throne in February 786 and sat for three years and eleven days, according to Agnellus. Agnellus records only two episodes from Gratiosus' episcopate. In the first, a "deadly disaster" struck Ravenna and "bodies were strewn over the ground, which the living were hardly able to bury."
Sometime between April and June 787, after spending Easter in Rome, Charlemagne stayed in Ravenna as the guest of Gratiosus.. For the dating, see . This is the occasion for the second episode, which Joaquín Martínez Pizarro calls "one of the earliest and most interesting stories in medieval literature about the use of the vernacular".. For interpretations, see p. 81 n21. According to Agnellus, the clergy asked their unlearned archbishop to say as little as possible around the king so as not to embarrass them. Gratiosus agreed.; ; . Charlemagne was received in a formal dining room () known as the in the episcopal complex ().; . Gratiosus's episcopate was the high point Charlemagne's relations with Ravenna. After the 787 meeting, the king requested spolia from Ravenna's ancient monuments for the construction of the palace of Aachen. He had received them by the time he wintered in Aachen in 788–789.; ; .
After these two episodes, the entry for Gratiosus in Agnellus's Book of the Pontiffs is taken up by a copy of a sermon, which seems in fact to have been a sermon by Archbishop Felix of Ravenna, referred to in Felix's entry but copied into the narrative, for whatever reason, under Gratiosus. The sermon is introduced, moreover, by reference to a sign from the time of Charlemagne's conquest of the Lombard kingdom (p. 291).
Gratiosus died on 23 February 789 and was buried in the basilica of Sant'Apollinare in Classe. His marble sarcophagus has a semicylindrical lid with a guilloché pattern on the edge. It is decorated with crosses ending in volutes on the sides and the lid.; . It has a Latin epitaph carved in simple letters, which reads: "This tomb preserves enclosed the body of our lord Gratiosus, most holy and thrice most blessed archbishop". Unlike the sarcophagus of Felix but like his immediate predecessor's, that of Gratiosus was produced locally for him and was not a recycled ancient sarcophagus. It still lies in Sant'Apollinare.; . The election to replace him was disputed.. The next bishop, , lacks an entry in Agnellus (see ).
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