The Mausoleum of Galla Placidia is a Late Antique Roman building in Ravenna, Italy, built between 425 and 450. It was added to the World Heritage List together with seven other structures in Ravenna in 1996. Despite its common name, the empress Galla Placidia (d. 450) was not buried in the building, a misconception dating from the thirteenth century; she died in Rome and was buried there, probably alongside Honorius in the Mausoleum of Honorius at Old Saint Peter's Basilica. History The "mausoleum" of Galla Placidia, built 425–450, is a cruciform chapel or oratory that originally adjoined the narthex of the Church of the Holy Cross (Santa Croce) in Ravenna. It was probably dedicated to Saint Lawrence. Aelia Galla Placidia, the likely patron of the building's construction, was the daughter of Theodosius I and Galla, the daughter of Valentinian I. Raised by Serena, wife of Stilicho, she was made nobilissima in her youth and granted a palace by her father in Constantinople. She received an advanced education both secular and religious, as is evident from her letters. She married Athaulf, King of the Visigoths in 414 in Spain after moving to the West, though he soon died and she married the patricius Constantius (later Constantius III) in 417. Their children were Justa Grata Honoria and Valentinian III. Constantius III was elevated as co-emperor of the West in 421 by Honorius, who lacked an heir, and Galla Placidia was made augusta; Constantius died the same year and Galla Placidia fled to Constantinople. When Honorius died in 423, the primicerius notariorum Joannes succeeded as augustus in the West; thereafter Theodosius II, augustus in the East, moved to install Galla Placidia's son Valentinian as emperor in the West instead, appointing him caesar. The building dates from after 425; in that year the six-year old Valentinian III took office as augustus in 425 and Galla Placidia's title as augusta was again secured – she ruled as regent for her son for twelve years. Her political influence waned with the growing maturity of her son and the rise to prominence of the patricius Flavius Aëtius in the 430s, but she remained powerful until she died in 450. She was an active patron of religious institutions, building churches at Ravenna, Rome, and Jerusalem. She contributed to the refurbishment of Saint Paul's outside-the-walls (San Paolo fuori le Mura), as recorded in an inscription there. A basilica in