[...] the model of Charlemagne's renewed Roman empire was not Augustus, but Justinian, the devout Catholic depicted in the mosaics of San Vitale. Jus… - Peter C. Brownell

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[...] the model of Charlemagne's renewed Roman empire was not Augustus, but Justinian, the devout Catholic depicted in the mosaics of San Vitale. Justinian was the direct, if inadvertent, ancestor of the idea that a "Christian republic", a Holy Roman Empire, would always exist in Western Europe to serve the interests of the papacy and to ensure the libertas of the Catholic church . (Part 2, chapter I, p. 108)