Saint Isaac's Cathedral
One of the most monumental buildings in Europe. Thanks to its colossal size, gigantic efforts in construction, as well as the untold riches that adorn it, it is considered the first and only temple of beauty and grandeur in all of Russia.
Address:
St. Petersburg, Isaakievskaya sq., 4
The peculiarity of the history of its creation is that the cathedral took about 150 years to build.
Its construction went through all the reigns of modern Russian history, starting with Emperor Peter I and ending with Alexander III. Almost all famous architects known at that time participated in its construction. The drawings and plan of this church were drawn up by the architect Maternovi.
The construction was led by stone mason Yakov Narponov. Further, the architect Antonio Rinaldi participated in the construction, but the construction was extremely slow and Rinaldi was forced to leave St. Petersburg, the architect Vincenzo Brenna completed what he started.
Construction was completed only in 1800. Fulfilling the king’s wishes, Brenna was forced to distort Rinaldi’s project and the design turned out to be unsightly. In the 1810s, a new competition was announced to design a new cathedral.
On February 20, 1818, a decree followed: “To carry out the final reconstruction of St. Isaac’s Cathedral with decent splendor and approving the plan for such reconstruction according to the design of the talented architect-draftsman O. Montferrand.”
St. Isaac's Cathedral was solemnly founded on June 26, 1818 and 40 years later the cathedral was built.
The cathedral was consecrated on May 30, 1858, and it became the main cathedral of the city and was considered “the first in the empire.” 43 types of minerals were used in the decoration of St. Isaac's Cathedral. The basement is lined with granite, and the walls are covered with gray marble. Inside, the cathedral amazes with its splendor. The walls of the cathedral are lined with white Carara marble, on which panels of green Genoese, yellow Siena marble, polychrome jasper, and red porphyry from Karelia stand out. The floor is paved with slabs of multi-colored Russian, Italian and French marbles, framed with a porphyry frieze. Above the pink pilasters rise a marble entablature and an attic, containing 40 images and paintings painted in oil paints on plaster. Among the cathedral's shrines, noteworthy is the miraculous icon of the Tikhvin Mother of God, revealed in the year of the consecration of the cathedral in St. Petersburg in the house of the bourgeois Maria Vostokova.
The cathedral also contained parts of the tree of the Holy Cross and part of the relics of the Apostle Andrew the First-Called.
Its construction went through all the reigns of modern Russian history, starting with Emperor Peter I and ending with Alexander III. Almost all famous architects known at that time participated in its construction. The drawings and plan of this church were drawn up by the architect Maternovi.
The construction was led by stone mason Yakov Narponov. Further, the architect Antonio Rinaldi participated in the construction, but the construction was extremely slow and Rinaldi was forced to leave St. Petersburg, the architect Vincenzo Brenna completed what he started.
Construction was completed only in 1800. Fulfilling the king’s wishes, Brenna was forced to distort Rinaldi’s project and the design turned out to be unsightly. In the 1810s, a new competition was announced to design a new cathedral.
On February 20, 1818, a decree followed: “To carry out the final reconstruction of St. Isaac’s Cathedral with decent splendor and approving the plan for such reconstruction according to the design of the talented architect-draftsman O. Montferrand.”
St. Isaac's Cathedral was solemnly founded on June 26, 1818 and 40 years later the cathedral was built.
The cathedral was consecrated on May 30, 1858, and it became the main cathedral of the city and was considered “the first in the empire.” 43 types of minerals were used in the decoration of St. Isaac's Cathedral. The basement is lined with granite, and the walls are covered with gray marble. Inside, the cathedral amazes with its splendor. The walls of the cathedral are lined with white Carara marble, on which panels of green Genoese, yellow Siena marble, polychrome jasper, and red porphyry from Karelia stand out. The floor is paved with slabs of multi-colored Russian, Italian and French marbles, framed with a porphyry frieze. Above the pink pilasters rise a marble entablature and an attic, containing 40 images and paintings painted in oil paints on plaster. Among the cathedral's shrines, noteworthy is the miraculous icon of the Tikhvin Mother of God, revealed in the year of the consecration of the cathedral in St. Petersburg in the house of the bourgeois Maria Vostokova.
The cathedral also contained parts of the tree of the Holy Cross and part of the relics of the Apostle Andrew the First-Called.
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