St. Isaac’s Ploshchad 4
Tel. 315- 9732
Open: 10am- 11pm Thu- Tue (Oct- Apr 11am- 7pm)
Closed: Wed
Bus: 3, 22, 27
Trolleybus: 5, 22
Metro: Nevsky Prospekt
St. Isaac's Cathedral (Cathedral of St. Isaac of Dalmatia) is the
largest Orthodox church in St. Petersburg. Located on St. Isaac's
Square. Cathedral of the St. Petersburg diocese from 1858 to 1929. Since
1928, it has the status of a museum (the museum complex "State
Museum-Monument" St. Isaac's Cathedral "").
The modern building
of the cathedral is the fourth St. Petersburg church in honor of St.
Isaac of Dalmatia, built on the site of a cathedral designed by Antonio
Rinaldi. The author of the project of the fourth cathedral, which was
intended to become the main Orthodox shrine of the empire, was the
architect Auguste Montferrand. The construction was supervised by
Nicholas I himself, the chairman of the Commission for the construction
of the cathedral was Karl Opperman. During the construction of the
building, new construction technologies were used for that time, which
influenced the further development of architecture in the 19th and 20th
centuries. The construction of the building and work on its design
continued from 1818 to 1858. St. Isaac's Cathedral is considered the
latest building in the style of classicism.
It was consecrated in
the name of the Monk Isaac of Dalmatia, revered by Peter I as a saint,
since the emperor was born on the day of his memory - May 30 according
to the Julian calendar. The solemn consecration on May 30 (June 11),
1858, of the new cathedral was performed by Metropolitan Gregory of
Novgorod, St. Petersburg, Estland and Finland.
Registered in June
1991, the church community received the opportunity to worship in the
cathedral. Divine services in St. Isaac's Cathedral are held daily. The
rector of the church is Metropolitan Varsonofy (Sudakov) of St.
Petersburg and Ladoga.
The first temple was built for the Admiralty
shipyards, which by 1706 employed more than 10,000 people. Peter I
gave the order to find a suitable building for the future church.
The building of a large drawing barn was chosen, which was located
on the Admiralty meadow, opposite the gates of the Admiralty. The
money for the restructuring was allocated by the Chancellery from
the buildings of the city, which belonged to the Admiralty
Department. The Dutch architect Harman van Bolos was invited to
build the church spire. The building was wooden, one-storied, of a
simple form. On the roof there was a bell tower with a spire and a
small dome with a cross above the altar. The church was founded on
the day of St. Isaac of Dalmatia in 1710, in the same year the first
service took place.
Here, on February 19 (March 1), 1712,
Peter I and Ekaterina Alekseevna were married. There is an entry in
the log book for that day:
In the coming year, which no longer
represented the expectation of adversity, Peter I married Ekaterina
Alekseevna on the 19th, on Tuesday, during the omnivorous week. The
wedding of His Majesty was performed in the morning in St. Isaac's
Cathedral. At 10 o'clock in the morning, the highly married, with
volleys from the bastions of the Peter and Paul and Admiralty
fortresses, entered their winter home.
The first church was
demolished when it became clear that it was too small for the
rapidly developing city. It was decided to build a second church
near the Neva, just 20 meters from the shore, where later a monument
to Peter I was erected instead of the church, according to other
sources, the church was built a little east of this place.
The second St. Isaac's Church, in stone, was founded
in 1717, since the first one had already dilapidated by that time. On
August 6 (17), 1717, Peter I personally laid the first stone in the
foundation of a new church in the name of Isaac of Dalmatia[2]. The
second St. Isaac's Church was built in the style of "Peter's Baroque"
according to the project of the prominent architect of the Petrine era,
Georg Mattarnovi. After his death in 1719, the construction was headed
by Nikolai Gerbel. By this time, the foundations had already been
completed. A report to the Chancellery from the buildings of the stone
craftsman Yakov Neupokoev has been preserved: “After the death of the
architect Mattarnovi, the construction was entrusted to the architect
Gerbel, who does not indicate what to do, and there is a stop in the
building.” Gerbel erected the church vaults, but after they cracked due
to unsuccessful design decisions, Gaetano Chiaveri was handed over the
construction management. The church was completed by stone master Yakov
Neupokoev. The decoration was completed first by Chiaveri (1725-1726)
and then by Mikhail Zemtsov (1728).
The church had three naves,
with side porches and, for the first time in Russia, had the shape of a
Latin cross in plan. The stucco facades were almost devoid of
decoration, the side vestibules were articulated by pilasters with
capitals, their pediments were decorated with cornices of a laconic
profile. The walls of the side façades were divided by double blades of
a quarter brick, located between the arched windows. The windows were
glazed with Yamburg mirror glass - the local factory had been operating
since the times when these lands belonged to Sweden. Under the windows,
as well as under the windows of the Kunstkamera and the palace of
Tsaritsa Praskovya Feodorovna, Gerbel arranged niches. Apse, vestibules,
side naves had vaulted brick ceilings. The “octagon on the quadrangle”,
placed at the crosshairs of the vaults, crowned the octagonal dome with
a star. The steeple on the bell tower and the dome were built according
to the design of van Boles in 1724. The hip roof with a horizontal break
was covered with iron along the board. The plan length was 28 fathoms
(60.5 m). The width from the southern doors to the northern ones is 15
sazhens (32.4 m), in other places - 9.5 sazhens (20.5 m).
The
appearance of the church was reminiscent of the Peter and Paul
Cathedral[12], this similarity was even more enhanced by the slender
bell tower with a clock-chimes in the third tier, brought by Peter I
from Amsterdam along with the clock for the Peter and Paul Cathedral.
The height of the spire of the bell tower was almost equal to the height
of the spire of the Admiralty tower.
The bell tower was 12
sazhens and 2 arshins (27.4 m) high, the spire was 6 sazhens (13 m). The
onion-shaped spire was crowned with a weather vane - a gilded angel
holding a cross (the weather vane of the Peter and Paul Cathedral is a
cross on which an angel stands).
Five architectural sheets signed
by Gerbel have survived. Among them are four versions of the
iconostasis, the only sketches of altars from the time of Peter the
Great that have come down to us. The carved gilded iconostasis, similar
to the iconostasis in the Peter and Paul Cathedral, was made in the
Moscow workshop of Ivan Zarudny. In 1763, before the demolition of the
church, it was dismantled and sent for storage to one of the temples;
nothing is known about its further fate.
On June 26, 1733, the
bell tower burned down from a lightning strike, restoration work was
carried out by van Boles. In the same year, 1733, the bell tower was
rebuilt, and in the following year, the clock for the church was also
made. In May 1735, a lightning strike caused a fire in the church, and
it was seriously damaged. Thus, for example, the cabinet minister, Count
Andrey Osterman, describes the state of affairs in the church, asking on
May 28 (June 8), 1735, permission from the Synod to arrange a church in
his house for his sick wife and appoint a priest there:
The Church of
St. Isaac of Dalmatia, from whom my house is acquired in the parish, has
recently burned down and services in it are not only liturgy, but also
Vespers, and Matins, and hours, now there is no.
Already in June
of the same year, an estimate was drawn up for the correction of the
church. Two thousand rubles were allocated for these purposes, and Major
Lyubim Pustoshkin was appointed to supervise the work. The relevant
decree stated:
The Church of St. Isaac of Dalmatia, how soon it is
possible to begin now, although only over the altar to quickly cover
with boards, and then over the whole church to contract to make rafters
and roofs, so that now there could be a service in it.
As a
result of the repair, according to the project and under the supervision
of the architect Pietro Trezzini, the walls and galleries were rebuilt,
instead of iron, the dome was covered with copper, and the vaults were
replaced with stone ones. Services began to take place again in the
church. But in the course of the work, it became clear that, due to the
subsidence of the ground, the temple needed more corrections or even a
complete rebuilding.
The location of the church next to the Neva
(on the island of New Holland), the shore of which had not yet been
fortified, was unsuccessful - this was the conclusion of the examination
of the architect of the Admiralty College Savva Chevakinsky. Water from
the Neva, as well as water discharged from the Admiralty House,
undermined the foundation of the building. According to some sources,
Chevakinsky stated the impossibility of preserving the building and
decided to dismantle the church and build a new one further from the
coast. According to others, work on the restructuring of the church was
carried out in the same place
By a decree of the Senate dated July 15, 1761, Savva
Chevakinsky was entrusted with the design of a new building. The project
was not implemented, but it was Chevakinsky who came up with the idea of
moving the church further from the river - in one of the options, the
place for it was chosen where the modern cathedral is located.
Catherine II approved the idea of recreating the bell tower of St.
Isaac's Cathedral, but in its former forms, without taking into account
the Chevakinsky project, which proposed a completely different look for
the cathedral. Soon Chevakinsky resigned. In 1766, a decree was issued
on the start of work on a new construction site, planned by Chevakinsky.
On January 19, 1768, Catherine II signed a decree "On the manufacture of
marble and wild stone for the construction of St. Isaac's Church in the
Keksgolmsky district of graveyards Serdobolsky and Ruskealsky with the
installation of grinding mills there." The ceremonial laying of the
building took place on August 8, 1768, and a medal was knocked out in
memory of this event.
The new design of the cathedral was
designed by Antonio Rinaldi. The building, as conceived by the
architect, had five domes of complex design and a high, slender bell
tower. The walls were covered with marble throughout. Circumstances were
such that Rinaldi could not complete the work he had begun. The building
was brought only to the cornice, when, after the death of Catherine II,
construction ceased, and Rinaldi went abroad.
Paul I, who
ascended the throne, instructed the architect Vincenzo Brenna to
urgently complete the work. Brenna began work on April 1, 1798. At
first, the architect intended to follow the design of Rinaldi, but soon,
due to lack of funds, the architect was forced to distort the design of
Rinaldi. By that time, the cathedral had been erected to the base of the
drums of the domes. Brenna had to reduce the size of the upper part of
the building and the main dome and abandon the construction of four
small domes, as well as reduce the height of the bell tower by one tier.
Marble for facing the upper part of the cathedral was transferred to the
construction of the residence of Paul I - the Mikhailovsky Castle. The
cathedral turned out to be distorted proportions, squat, with a strange
combination of luxurious marble plinth and brick walls.
This
building caused ridicule and bitter irony of contemporaries. The
following epigram was widely used in various versions:
This is a
monument of two kingdoms,
Both so decent:
On the marble floor
A
brick top has been erected.
In 1809, a competition was announced for the
construction of a new church. An indispensable condition was the
preservation of the three consecrated altars of the existing
cathedral. The program of the competition, approved by Alexander I,
was compiled by the President of the Academy of Arts Alexander
Stroganov. It said:
To find a way to decorate the temple...
without covering... its rich marble clothes... to find a dome shape
that can give grandeur and beauty to such a famous building... to
come up with a way to decorate the area belonging to this temple,
bringing its circumference into proper regularity.
The
competition was attended by architects Andrey Zakharov, Andrey
Voronikhin, Vasily Stasov, Giacomo Quarenghi, Charles Cameron and
others. But all the projects were rejected by Alexander I, since the
authors proposed not to rebuild the cathedral, but to build a new
one. In 1813, under the same conditions, a competition was again
announced, and again, none of the projects satisfied the emperor.
Then in 1816, Alexander I instructed the engineer Augustine
Betancourt, who had arrived from Spain, chairman of the newly formed
"Committee for Buildings and Hydraulic Works", to start preparing a
project for the restructuring of St. Isaac's Cathedral. Betancourt
offered to entrust the project to the young architect Auguste
Montferrand, who had recently come from France to Russia. To show
his skill, Montferrand made 24 drawings of buildings of various
architectural styles (however, technically not justified in any
way), which Betancourt presented to Alexander I. The emperor liked
the drawings, and soon a decree was signed appointing Montferrand
"imperial architect". At the same time, he was entrusted with the
preparation of a project for the restructuring of St. Isaac's
Cathedral with the condition that the altar part of the existing
cathedral be preserved.
Project of 1818. Start of
construction
In 1818, Montferrand, following the instructions of
Alexander I, drew up a project that provided for the preservation of
most of the Rinaldi Cathedral (the altar and domed pylons). The
belfry, altar ledges and the western wall of the Rinaldi Cathedral
were subject to dismantling, the domed supporting pylons of the
southern and northern walls were preserved. On the north and south
sides it was supposed to build columned porticoes. The cathedral was
to be crowned with one large dome and four small ones at the
corners. The height of the vaults remained the same, and this
circumstance complicated the development of the project, and the
overall composition of the building was disproportionate: a
monumental portico, a large central dome, supplemented by small ones
placed at the corners, “pressed” it. The design of the cathedral in
this form was approved by the emperor in 1818. In the 1820 edition
of his project, Montferrand included an image of the interior of the
cathedral, which gives an incorrect idea of its internal
perspective: the drum with window sills would not be visible from
where the viewer is.
As N. P. Nikitin notes in his monograph,
when creating the project, Montferrand took as examples the building
of the Parisian Pantheon (a dome with a colonnade, a portico, an
internal processing solution) and the Invalides (the structure of
the dome ceiling). The Montferrand project (in terms of the
architectural composition, but not the decor of the building) was
not an original work, but a compilation, which was the custom of
many, even the largest architects of that time.
In an effort
to preserve the Rinaldi Cathedral, Montferrand provided for an
increase in the size of the building only in the east-west
direction, so that it became rectangular in plan with an aspect
ratio of 4 to 7. Four new pylons increased the width of the building
by the width of the transverse nave. Taking into account the new
porticoes, the plan turned out to be an almost equal cross. Two old
pylons, reinforced on the western side, and two new ones became a
support for the dome. Rinaldi designed a chapter with a diameter
equal to the side of a square base, Montferrand put a new chapter on
the same base, the diameter of which was already equal to the
diagonal of the square. Thus, the drum of the new chapter hung over
the vaults of the side aisles. Together with the columns surrounding
the drum, the diameter of the new dome was two-thirds larger than
that of the Rinaldi one.
Construction management was
entrusted to a special commission. Its chairman was a member of the
State Council, Count N. N. Golovin, members were the Minister of
Internal Affairs O. P. Kozodavlev, the Minister of Spiritual Affairs
and Public Education, Prince A. N. Golitsyn, engineer A. Betancourt.
The organization of work, the entire economic part of the
construction was entrusted to the commission (according to the
regulation on the commission, approved only in July 1820), the
management of the actual construction work, the solution of all
technical issues and the management of the architect's actions were
assigned to Betancourt. Quality control of materials was entrusted
to the architect. A special commissioner was appointed for their
acceptance and storage. Betancourt, busy with work at other sites,
often absent from St. Petersburg, limited himself to attending
meetings of the commission and resolving issues on the construction
of the bases and foundations of the building.
On June 26,
1819, the solemn laying of the new cathedral took place.
In 1820, Montferrand released an album with 21
engraved tables. To his two plans, which remained unchanged, he added a
longitudinal section, a general plan, a design for a church designed by
Rinaldi, as well as wall painting designs, two perspective views, and a
depiction of an interior. The project again attracted the attention of
specialists. The architect A. Maudui, who was one of the members of the
"Committee for Buildings and Hydraulic Works", entered with his sharp
criticism. On October 20, 1820, he submitted a note to the Academy of
Arts with comments on the 1818 project. The note was accompanied by
drawings showing Montferrand's mistakes.
Maudui petitioned for
the cessation of all construction work, except for masons and
dismantling of those parts of the structure that were intended for
demolition. On June 14, 1821, at a meeting of the Academy of Arts, the
creation of a special committee to consider Maudui's comments was
announced. At the first meeting of the committee (in August 1821), two
letters from Maudui were heard (to Golitsyn about stopping work and to
Olenin about the issues raised in the comments on the project requiring
priority consideration), his note and Montferrand's objections to it. It
was decided to review the approved plans, facades and sections of the
building and examine the building itself in the presence of Montferrand.
The first inspection of the building took place on 15 August.
The
essence of Maudui's remarks, which had a great resonance, boiled down to
three main points: doubts about the strength of the foundation, the
danger of uneven settlement of the building and the incorrect design of
the dome, the size of which exceeded the allowable limits, and the
possibility of the collapse of the dome, based on pylons of different
construction times.
According to Maudui, Montferrand did not have
the necessary qualifications and experience to work on such a serious
project and, starting it, did not understand the difficulties involved
in its implementation. Further, Maudui noted that, having started the
restructuring of the building, Montferrand did not have a proper idea of
the existing foundations, did not know how deep new ones would need to
be laid, and was going to make them from a rubble slab - in a way not
suitable for such a complex structure. According to Montferrand's
answer, he examined the foundations at the northern corner of the
building, and also examined the cellars with one of the members of the
commission. On the issue of driving a pile foundation under both porches
of the newly constructed porticos, which, according to Maudui, was
unnecessary and entailed "an unnecessary large expense", the committee
considered the architect's actions correct.
According to Maudui,
the four pylons on which the lantern with the dome of the third
cathedral rested were “almost impossible” to leave, since the foundation
under the “auxiliary supports” would not withstand the load of the
existing pylons. Two old pylons and two newly built ones, according to
Montferrand's plan, should serve as a support for a new lantern and
dome. Maudui pointed out that pylons built at different times would have
an uneven draft. The Committee considered that while maintaining the old
foundations under the existing pylons, the construction of a heavy stone
dome is not safe due to uneven settlement.
Having learned about
the conclusions of the committee, Alexander I instructed him to fix the
project, while observing the condition of "preserving, if possible, the
existing walls, and even the old and new foundations." It was also
ordered to preserve the main features of the Montferrand project - five
domes and columned porticos. The decision of the interior space of the
cathedral, the main dome, the illumination of the building was left to
the discretion of the committee. Montferrand was allowed to participate
in the work on a general basis. In addition to Montferrand itself,
architects V.P. Stasov, A.I. Melnikov, A.A. Mikhailov Sr. and others
participated in this competition.
As a result of the competition,
the Committee could not make any decision: the projects were submitted
for consideration to Alexander I. The latter, probably, realized that he
had set an unsolvable task for the architects, and did not give any
orders. There was a break in the work of the Committee, which lasted
until February 1824, when a decree appeared on the continuation of
design work. It again repeated the conditions of the emperor, the
concession was the permission to change the elongated plan (proposed by
Montferrand) to a square one, which gave some room for architects to
work, but required the dismantling of part of the already built
foundation. It was also allowed to dismantle the eastern pylons, which
contributed to an increase in the space under the dome and the creation
of a structurally correct connection between the drum and the dome. Thus
began the second stage of the competition for the correction of the
project, in which Montferrand himself took part. He studied the
competition projects and revised his own, taking some solutions from the
projects of Mikhailov 2nd and Stasov, and also proposed his ideas,
correcting the mistakes of the previous project. The revised draft of
Montferrand was provided to the emperor on March 9, 1825, and it was
approved on April 8 of the same year.
The new project of Montferrand, corrected and supplemented, was again recognized as the best and approved by Alexander I on April 13, 1825. The construction commission was reorganized - it included members of the abolished committee for reviewing Maudui's comments. The mistakes of previous years were taken into account: the construction of the cathedral was no longer carried out on a wide front, working drawings were developed (which had not been done before), calendar plans and estimates were drawn up (tentative, for a period of one year, the total cost of construction was never determined). In the new project, the main dome was enlarged, and four small belfries fixed the corners of the central square. The slight elongation of the basilica plan with three naves was skillfully disguised by four symmetrical porticoes. As a result, the temple acquired a more traditional five-domed view for Orthodoxy, but external symmetry was given at the cost of losing the protrusion of the altar apse in the eastern part. Montferrand took into account the advice and comments of the largest Russian architects, engineers, sculptors and artists. According to his new project, the cathedral was decorated with four columned porticos (in the project of 1818 there were only two of them - southern and northern). The central part of the cathedral was emphasized by a domed square formed by four new supporting pylons set wider than the others. Thanks to this, the main dome clearly fit into the square of the pylons and its sagging was excluded. Four bell towers were installed at the corners of the main volume, as if cut into the walls. Now they were located closer to the central dome than in the previous project. This further strengthened the square construction of the cathedral, its general appearance became more compact, balanced, the central dome began to dominate the composition. The symmetrical porticos made it possible to combine the artistically main northern façade, facing the Neva and the Bronze Horseman, and the main, according to the canons of the church, western façade, where the entrance to the temple is located. The northern and southern porticos with three rows of columns (in contrast to the single-row western and eastern ones) repeat, according to Montferrand's idea, in an enlarged size the portico of the Roman Pantheon (118-120 AD) as the most famous building of antiquity. By order of the President of the Academy of Arts, A. N. Olenin, who supported this idea, casts of capitals of the Pantheon's Corinthian order were ordered from Rome; they arrived in St. Petersburg in 1828.
Work on the construction of the foundation began in
1818, according to the first project of Montferrand. Difficult technical
issues were to be solved by Betancourt, but, being employed in the
construction of other facilities outside of St. Petersburg, he could not
enter into all the problems that arose during construction [k 4]. Thus,
Montferrand, who was not an engineer, who was initially entrusted with
the author's control over the quality of materials and construction of
works, was put in a difficult position. The scope of his duties did not
include issues of supply and organization of construction work, and he
sought from the Commission the expansion of powers and greater
independence, by 1819 he succeeded [60].
Construction began with
the dismantling of the existing semi-circular apses and preparatory work
for the erection of new parts of the foundation. Montferrand emphasized
that new foundations should be raised to the level of a granite base,
thus ensuring a uniform settlement of the building. For the first year
of construction, he requested 506,300 rubles, assuming that during the
summer enough stone would be obtained to erect the facades of the
building to the level of the entablature next year.
Under the new
parts of the foundation, trenches were dug, from which water was pumped
out. Then tarred pine piles 26-28 cm in diameter and 6.5 m long were
driven vertically into the ground. The distance between the piles
exactly corresponded to their diameter. Piles were driven into the
ground with heavy cast-iron women using gates driven by horses. Ten
blows were made on each pile. If after that the pile did not enter the
ground, then it was cut off with the permission of the superintendent.
After that, all the trenches were interconnected and filled with water.
When the water froze, the piles were cut down to one level, calculated
from the ice surface. According to Montferrand, 12,130 spruce piles were
driven under the foundation.
When constructing the foundation,
Montferrand used solid masonry, since he believed that “for the
foundations of large buildings, solid masonry is preferable to any other
type of its implementation, especially ... if the building is being
built on flat and marshy ground ...” This also made it possible to
connect the old Rinaldi foundation with the new one in the best way. and
to a large extent guaranteed the building from the dangerous effects of
precipitation.
The cutting of granite monoliths for the columns
of the cathedral was carried out in the Pyuterlaks quarry near Vyborg.
These lands belonged to the landowner von Exparre. The advantages of
this particular place for the quarry were a large supply of granite, the
proximity of the Gulf of Finland with a deep fairway and the postal
route. Here is what Montferrand noted in his diary when he visited the
quarry for the first time: “The surprise that we experienced when we saw
... granite rocks was, of course, great, but it was replaced by direct
admiration when later we admired in the first quarry seven still
unworked columns ... "
The work at the quarry was initially led
by the merchant Samson Sukhanov, who also participated in the creation
of the Rostral Columns and the Kazan Cathedral. Sukhanov, under an
agreement dated January 1819, acted as a foreman, but already in May of
the same year, part of the contract for the procurement of columns was
transferred to the merchant Shikhin. Later, the contract was completely
given to Shikhin. In September 1820, the first column for the cathedral
was delivered to St. Petersburg.
The method of breaking out
granite monoliths used in Püterlax was described in 1824 by Olenin, who
visited the breaking together with Montferrand and Stasov. On a steep
granite rock, there were monoliths of suitable size (at least 8 fathoms
long and 1 or 2 wide, if two columns were supposed to be made from a
monolith) without visible flaws. The layers of granite in Pyuterlax were
separated by interlayers of earth (they were called rupases) about half
an inch wide. The contour of the workpiece was marked, then holes were
“drilled” along the width of the future column with iron drills with
pointed ends (their length ranged from 3/4 to 2 fathoms). “Drilling”
took place as follows: one worker held and turned the drill, the other
two hit the drill with heavy sledgehammers until the workpiece was
separated from the rock along the rupaz. Along the contour, marking the
length of the future column, holes were drilled to a depth of rupaza,
the distance between them was left at 5-6 inches. Gunpowder and wads
were hammered into the holes and the monolith was separated along the
length of the column by powder explosions. Further, iron wedges were
driven “along the horizontal surface of the rock”, the workers beat them
until the workpiece separated and fell onto the prepared scaffolding at
the foot of the rock. Olenin noted that work on the separation of
granite masses was difficult and slow.
The separated granite mass
was examined for the absence of defects and compliance with the
dimensions. Then the blank for the columns was given a rough "round
shape" with the help of hammers. Transportation from the quarry was
carried out on flat-bottomed ships, specially made for this at the
Charles Byrd factory. The monoliths of the columns were rolled to the
seashore, where they were loaded onto barges. Each ship was towed by two
steamboats to the pier in St. Petersburg. There, the monoliths were
unloaded and transported along a special rail track to the construction
site for their final processing. The use of this rail track at the
construction site was the first in Russia.
Frequently visiting
the quarries, Montferrand noted: “Granite quarrying, labor of this kind
in all other places is not very common, is encountered in Russia very
often and is very well understood ... works that arouse our surprise at
the works of antiquity are nothing more than a daily affair to which no
one is surprised.
The pile driving, the foundations under the
four towers, the east and west porticos, and the stylobates of the north
and south porticos were completed in 1826. The next stage of
construction was the erection of porticoes before the construction of
the walls of the cathedral. This decision of the architect, contrary to
common practice, was due to the complexity of installing granite
columns.
Back in 1822, Betancourt designed scaffolding and
mechanisms for lifting the columns of St. Isaac's Cathedral, they were
not used by Montferrand, since construction work was suspended.
According to the Betancourt project, a system of mechanisms was created,
with the help of which Montferrand installed the Alexander Column on
Palace Square in 1832. The drawings of the scaffolding were made for
each portico separately, signed by Montferrand, as well as by the
architects Glinka and Adamini, approved on June 15, 1828.
To lift
the columns, special scaffolding was built, consisting of three high
spans (for large porticos) or one span (for small ones), formed by
vertical posts covered with beams. 16 cast-iron capstan gates were
installed aside, each of which employed eight people. The column was
sheathed with felt and mats, tied with ship ropes and rolled into one of
the spans of scaffolding, and the ends of the ropes were fixed on
capstans through a system of blocks. The workers, rotating the gate,
brought the monolith to a vertical position. The installation of one
17-meter column with a diameter of 1.8 meters and a mass of 114 tons
took about 40-45 minutes. Montferrand noted in his notes that "the
wooden construction of the scaffolding ... is so perfect that with all
forty-eight installations of the columns, even a simple creak was never
heard."
The first column (on the far right in the northern
portico) was installed on March 20, 1828 in the presence of the royal
family, foreign guests, many architects who had come specially for this
celebration, and ordinary citizens who filled the square and the roofs
of the surrounding houses. A platinum medal with the image of Alexander
I was laid under the base of the column. The construction of the
porticos was completed by the autumn of 1830.
Then the
construction of the supporting pylons and walls of the cathedral began.
For greater strength, granite gaskets and metal ties of various profiles
were made into the brickwork on lime mortar for greater strength. Walls
and pylons were laid out simultaneously around the entire perimeter.
Montferrand's decision to lay pylons in alternating rows of brick and
hewn granite was innovative, according to Rotach and Chekanova, thus
creating an "ideal supporting structure". Granite pads of varying plan
configurations ensured pressure transfer across cleanly hewn horizontal
and vertical surfaces.
The thickness of the walls ranged from 2.5
to 5 m. The thickness of the outer marble cladding was 40-50 cm, the
inner one - 15-20 cm. It was carried out simultaneously with the
brickwork, using iron hooks (pyrons) inserted into holes specially
drilled for this . For the roofing, wrought iron rafters were made.
Ventilation galleries were arranged inside the southern and northern
walls. For natural lighting of the cathedral, light galleries were made
above the galleries of the attic.
In 1836, the construction of
walls and pylons was completed and the construction of ceilings began.
The built brick vaults are 1.1 to 1.25 m thick and rest on six pylons.
In addition to constructive brick vaults, decorative ones were also
made, which were an iron frame covered with a metal mesh and lined with
artificial marble. A space 30 cm high was left between the decorative
and structural vaults. Such a double overlap of the vaults is a
characteristic feature of the cathedral, which has not been seen before
in other church buildings in Russia and Western Europe.
In 1837,
when the base of the dome was completed, the installation of 24 upper
columns began. The columns climbed upward along an inclined flooring - a
system of flying buttresses, which relied on the base of the colonnade
on one side, on the walls and pylons on the other. The lifting was
carried out with the help of special carts. To turn the columns, devices
were used from two cast-iron circles, balls were inserted into the
groove of the lower one.
The next step in the construction of the
cathedral was the construction of the dome. Montferrand sought to
lighten the dome as much as possible without losing strength. To do
this, he proposed to make it not brick, as was envisaged by the 1825
project, but completely metal. The calculations for the dome were made
by engineer P.K. Lomnovsky. Casting of metal structures of the dome was
carried out at the factory of Charles Byrd. In this case, 490 tons of
iron, 990 tons of cast iron, 49 tons of copper and 30 tons of bronze
were used. The dome of St. Isaac's Cathedral became the third dome in
the world, made using metal structures and shells (after the tower of
the Nevyansk plant in the Urals, built in 1725, and the dome of the
Mainz Cathedral - in 1828). The model was the dome of London's St Paul's
Cathedral, designed by Christopher Wren. But Montferrand, having
borrowed the design, made it from other materials.
Structurally,
the dome consists of three interconnected parts formed by cast-iron
ribs: the lower spherical, the middle - conical and the outer -
parabolic. The metal frame is made up of 24 I-section ribs. The strip
connecting the shelves of the I-beam is perforated. The connections of
the frame parts were made on bolts. The diameter of the outer vault is
25.8 m, the lower one is 22.15 m. The space between the trusses for
insulation was filled with hollow conical pottery pots on brick lintels
with filling the gaps between them with lime with crushed stone. It took
about 100,000 of these pots to complete the vaults. Pot vaults improve
the acoustics of the temple and are much lighter than brick ones, but,
as Nikitin notes, the dome does not protect from freezing.
The
thermal insulation of the pot vaults was made of felt and cow's wool
filled with resin and harpius (pine rosin). The felt, in turn, was
covered with lime-sand mortar, which was painted with oil paint. The
exposed parts of the metal structures were also protected with felt. The
inner conical dome is covered with bluish-tinted copper sheets, with
large bronze rays and stars, creating a spectacular picture of the night
sky. Outside, the dome is covered with gilded copper sheets tightly
fitted to each other.
The gilding of the domes of the cathedral
in 1838-1841 was carried out by fire gilding. In the process, they were
poisoned by mercury vapor and 60 craftsmen died. According to
contemporaries, from 60 to 120 people (probably, they meant not only the
gilding of the dome, but also the gilding of interior details) died from
mercury poisoning during the construction of the cathedral.
Subsequently, the gilding of not very large parts was carried out by a
safe method of electroplating. In total, 400,000 workers - state and
serfs - took part in the construction of the cathedral. Judging by the
documents of that time, about a quarter of them died from diseases or
died as a result of accidents. The total construction costs amounted to
over 23 million silver rubles. By 1842, the building of the cathedral
was basically completed, work began on the design, which lasted sixteen
years.
Montferrand's contemporaries explained the long period of
construction of the cathedral (40 years) by the fact that a certain
soothsayer predicted the death of the architect immediately after the
construction of St. Isaac's Cathedral was completed. Therefore, the
architect was in no hurry with the construction. Montferrand really
lived a little less than a month after the consecration of the
cathedral.
In the process of designing the interior decoration of the cathedral, Montferrand made three trips to Western Europe to study different types of temple interiors on the spot (the first time he was in Italy in 1806 as part of the Napoleonic army). In 1842, as an architect of Russia, he visited Florence and Rome, carefully studied St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. In 1845 he was in Carrara, Genoa and again in Florence and Rome. In 1851 - in Carrara, where he oversaw the manufacture of marble details for St. Isaac's Cathedral. The eclectic thinking of the new era of historicism was also manifested in Montferrand's "Architectural, artistic and historical description of St. Isaac's Cathedral", in which he tried to recreate the history of the architecture of Christian churches and present his project as the most complete, having absorbed all previous achievements. However, even earlier, the emperor probably had doubts about Montferrand's ability to create a representative project for the design of the interior of the cathedral. When Leo von Klenze visited St. Petersburg in 1839 in connection with an order to design the building of the New Hermitage, Emperor Nicholas I instructed him to draw up his design for the decoration of St. Isaac's Cathedral. Klenze criticized Montferrand's project and, in particular, proposed encaustic painting to be entrusted to the German painter P. von Cornelius, the installation of a stained-glass window in the altar, and even constructive changes in the already built cathedral. There was a conflict. Montferrand sent out indignant letters[89]. During a trip abroad in 1842, Montferrand, in addition to Italy, visited London and Paris (for the sake of studying the interiors of St. Paul's Cathedral and the Church of St. Genevieve). On the way back, he went to Munich, met with Klenze and managed to convince him of the advantages of his own project. Emperor Nicholas I agreed with the proposals of Montferrand, and only the stained-glass window of the altar part depicting the resurrected Savior was realized from the Klenze project.
Work on the interior design began in 1841, with the
participation of famous artists (Fyodor Bruni, Karl Bryullov, Johann
Konrad (Kondrat) Dorner, Ivan Burukhin, Vasily Shebuev, Franz Riess) and
sculptors (Ivan Vitali, Pyotr Klodt, Nikolai Pimenov) . The management
of the paintings was entrusted to the rector of the St. Petersburg
Academy of Arts, Professor V. K. Shebuev, the decor project and the
general concept of the murals were developed by Montferrand, considered
by the Synod and approved by the emperor.
One of the main
problems was the choice of technique for the execution of picturesque
panels. According to the initial proposal of Klenze (Nicholas I agreed
with him), the frescoes of the cathedral were to be made using the
encaustic technique. However, Bruni, who was involved in the discussion
of the method of performing future murals, after consultations with
Klenze, held at the beginning of 1842 in Munich, made a report in which
he indicated that this painting technique was completely unsuitable for
the climatic conditions of St. Petersburg. Based on the opinion of the
restorer Valati, Bruni spoke in favor of oil painting on canvas, framed
in copper frames with a bottom. Montferrand also leaned in favor of oil
painting. Bruni was commissioned to make a sample of encaustic painting
on copper, but soon it was decided to paint the walls of the cathedral
with oil paints on a special primer, and to perform the image in oil on
bronze boards.
At the same time, at the prompting of Montferrand,
P. Krivtsov compiled a report on the desirability of establishing a
Russian mosaic production, which was not supported by the Academy of
Arts. However, on August 12, 1845, Nicholas I "ordered to stop writing
icons for St. Isaac's Cathedral on copper boards that were difficult to
manufacture, ordered to paint on canvas and decided" to establish a
mosaic institution for the image after these icons in mosaic "".
According to the distribution of works, Bryullov was supposed to paint
the main dome (the largest composition with an area of 800 square
meters) and sails in the central nave, Bruni - the duct vault and the
attic of the main nave, Dorner - 12 icons containing 28 images for the
side parts of the large iconostasis, Basin - aisles of Alexander Nevsky
and St. Catherine. The western part of the cathedral was reserved for
stories on themes from the Old Testament, the eastern part - for
episodes from the life of Christ. Six paintings were painted by the
Italian painter Cesare Mussini.
The high humidity in the
cathedral precluded the creation of soil resistant to adverse external
influences. The wall was plastered for painting, cleaned with pumice,
heated with braziers to 100-120 degrees and several layers of mastic
were applied to it. The low quality of the basis for painting was the
reason that in some cases it had to be removed, and the artists
repainted the paintings. In some places, the soil lagged behind the
plaster. In his letter dated December 24, 1849, Bruni noted that
painting on fresh soils was impossible because of the “nitrate oxide”
subsequently protruding onto the surface of the painting from the wall.
A stable composition was created only in 1855, three years before the
completion of paintings in the cathedral.
Since in the cathedral,
due to temperature differences, high humidity and lack of ventilation,
there were unfavorable conditions for preserving the murals in their
original form, when decorating the interior from 1851, it was decided
(Emperor Nicholas I insisted on this) to use mosaics for interior
decoration. Smalt for St. Isaac's Cathedral was made in the mosaic
workshop of the Academy of Arts; On December 7, 1864, on the 3rd line of
Vasilyevsky Island, in a special building, an institution appeared,
later called the "Imperial Mosaic Institution", which was headed by Yu.
P. Bonafede. Mosaic icons for St. Isaac's Cathedral at that time were
created by its workers: M. A. Khmelevsky, Academician N. M. Alekseev, I.
D. Burukhin, M. P. Shchetinin, G. M. Agafonov, F. F. Gartung, A N.
Frolov, N. M. Golubtsov, M. P. Muravyov, P. S. Vasiliev, V. A. Kolosov,
E. G. Solntsev, and I. S. Shapovalov.
The creation of mosaic
panels continued until the outbreak of the First World War. When
creating sixty-two mosaics of the cathedral, more than 12 thousand
shades of smalt were used, the backgrounds were made of golden smalt
(cantorels). Mosaic images were made from originals by T. A. Neff.
The painting by S. A. Zhivago “The Last Supper”, the painting of the
sails of the main dome, the attic (“The Kiss of Judas”, “Behold the
Man”, “The Scourging”, “Carrying the Cross” by Basin) and pylons were
replaced with mosaics. The mosaic paintings of the cathedral were
exhibited at the London World Exhibition of 1862, where they were highly
appreciated.
A new tomb was made for the temple. The tomb of the
Church of the Savior on Sennaya was taken as a model (the author is the
jeweler Fyodor Verkhovtsev).
At the suggestion of Leo Klenze, a
stained-glass window was included in the interior of the cathedral - an
element of the decor of Catholic churches. The image of the Resurrected
Savior in the window of the main altar was approved by the Holy Synod
and personally by the emperor. The German artist Heinrich Maria von Hess
worked on his sketch, made under the direction of Max Einmiller, head of
the Glass Painting Establishment at the Royal Porcelain Manufactory in
Munich. In the window of the main altar, a stained-glass window was
installed in 1844 for demonstration to Nicholas I, and was soon
dismantled, judging by documentary references; in 1847 he again took his
place in the window.
The project of monumental and sculptural decoration of
the exterior (four bas-reliefs on the pediments and sculpture at their
corners, sculpture of the attic and balustrades of the dome, bas-reliefs
of doors in the niches of the porticos) was developed by Montferrand in
1839. The visual program was proposed by Olenin already in 1834, it was
implemented with some changes. Remaining entirely in the scheme
determined by the principles of the Empire style, the external decor of
the cathedral is made not only in the Empire style, but also in Baroque
and Renaissance forms, reflecting the transitional period when the
classicist settings no longer satisfied the artists, and they were
replaced by new decorative and plastic principles.
Olenin and the
sculptor P. Svintsov proposed to involve domestic masters to work on the
outdoor sculptural decoration. However, at the request of Nicholas I,
two pediments (northern and eastern porticos) were made by the French
sculptor Lemaire. His work, according to contemporaries, and later
researchers, was not very successful, two bas-reliefs of other porticos
were made by I. Vitali, whose works Montferrand accidentally saw during
his trip to Moscow. The pediments of the porticoes were cast at Byrd's
factory in 1840-1845. The statues of the 12 apostles (Vitali) crowning
the pediments - three of them - for the northern portico - were made by
the electroforming method at the Duke of Leuchtenberg's factory.
The balustrade of the dome is decorated with twenty-four statues of
angels (I. Herman, 1839-1840), holding various symbols and attributes.
Castings from ancient statues from the Academy of Arts served as models
for their figures.
The outer doors of the cathedral (the project
of Montferrand, approved in 1840, created under the influence of the
gates of L. Ghiberti for the Florentine Baptistery of San Giovanni) were
entrusted under the contract of 1845 to I. Vitali (sculptors R. K.
Zaleman and A. N. Belyaeva helped). Made at the request of Emperor
Nicholas I by galvanoplastic method, the process management (at the
plant of the Duke of Leuchtenberg) was entrusted to the inventor of the
method, Academician B. Jacobi.
The total cost of building the cathedral from 1818 until the completion of work in 1864 amounted to 23.26 million silver rubles. Of these, the cost of building the foundation amounted to 2539 thousand rubles in banknotes, the cost of 48 granite columns of the porticos, taking into account their installation, was 2612 thousand rubles in banknotes, the laying of walls - 2505 thousand rubles in banknotes, their facing with marble - another 7485 thousand rubles in banknotes, the cost of building four pediments of the porticos is 2278 thousand rubles in banknotes, roofs - 2445 thousand rubles in banknotes.
The solemn consecration of the cathedral took place in
1858, on May 30, on the day of memory of St. Isaac of Dalmatia, in the
presence of Emperor Alexander II and members of the imperial family. The
troops were lined up, whom the emperor welcomed before the start of the
rite of consecration, which was headed by Metropolitan Grigory
(Postnikov) of Novgorod and St. Petersburg. Tribunes for the people were
set up on Petrovsky and St. Isaac's Squares; the neighboring streets and
the roofs of the nearest houses were crowded with people.
In
connection with the construction and consecration of the cathedral by
Alexander II, a state award was established - the medal "In memory of
the consecration of St. Isaac's Cathedral." It was awarded to persons
who took part in the construction, decoration and consecration of the
cathedral.
6 years after the consecration of the cathedral and
upon completion of the work of the construction commission, in 1864, the
cathedral building was transferred to the Ministry of Communications and
Public Buildings. At the cathedral, the positions of inspector and
architect were established, and also, for constant monitoring of the
state of the cathedral, a special “technical and artistic meeting” was
created from three professors of the Academy of Arts.
In 1871 St.
Isaac's Cathedral was transferred under the control of the Ministry of
the Interior.
In 1879, John Polisadov founded the Society of
Preachers for the pulpit of St. Isaac's Cathedral - the first society of
its kind in the capital.
In 1883, the status of St. Isaac's
Cathedral changed: the cathedral (like the Cathedral of Christ the
Savior in Moscow) passed into dual subordination, to the department of
the Orthodox confession in the "economic sense", and remained under the
jurisdiction of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the "technical and
artistic" sense.
At the same time, the issue was discussed in
order to transfer the cathedral building to the sole management of the
spiritual department. The metropolitans of both capitals agreed, but the
rector of the Academy of Arts Alexander Rezanov opposed, saying that he
would not allow a situation where the building, which cost 15 million
rubles and 45 years of work, was left without the supervision of
specialists and "large material support from the government." Rezanov's
arguments were taken into account, and both cathedrals in the "technical
and artistic" respect remained under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of
Internal Affairs. On May 25, 1883, Emperor Alexander III approved the
“opinion of the State Council” on two cathedrals, in the third part of
the Complete Collection of Laws of the Russian Empire, this document is
numbered 1600 and is called “On the Procedure for Managing St. Isaac’s
Cathedral in St. Petersburg and Christ the Savior in Moscow ".
At the beginning of the 20th century, the question
arose again of transferring St. Isaac's Cathedral (and the Cathedral of
Christ the Savior) to the undivided control of the department of the
Orthodox confession. The need for such a change was motivated as
follows: difficulties in managing buildings due to their dual
subordination - to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the spiritual
department. On October 28, 1908, this issue was considered at a meeting
of the Council of Ministers, and the status of the cathedrals again
remained unchanged - dual subordination. In addition, to find out the
necessary repairs to the buildings, commissions were formed, which
included representatives of four ministries - internal affairs, finance,
the department of the Orthodox faith and state control.
Based on
the decree on the separation of church and state, the cathedral building
and church property were nationalized. In 1918, the building came under
the jurisdiction of the People's Commissariat of Property of the
Republic, and already in December 1919 it was transferred to the use of
the parishioners of the cathedral. On the part of the parishioners, more
than 30 people signed the agreement, according to its condition, the
parish used the cathedral free of charge, but was obliged to ensure the
payment of expenses for the current maintenance of the building
(heating, repairs, security, etc.). In May 1922, during the seizure of
church valuables, 48 kg of gold items and more than 2 tons of silver
jewelry were seized from the cathedral. On April 29, 1922, its rector,
Archpriest Leonid Bogoyavlensky, was arrested. In March 1923, the
cathedral came under the control of the parishioners of the Russian
Orthodox Church (Renovationists). The agreement on the use of the
cathedral with a public organization (parish) was terminated due to the
improper performance of their duties; services were terminated when the
Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on June 18,
1928 decided "to leave the cathedral building in the exclusive use of
Glavnauka as a museum monument." The remaining property of the temple
was sold through the State Fund, and all the bells were removed and
melted down.
On April 12, 1931, one of the first anti-religious
museums in Soviet Russia was opened in the cathedral.
During the
Great Patriotic War, the cathedral suffered from bombing, shelling, cold
and dampness; on the walls and columns in some places there are traces
of shells. During the siege, exhibits from museums from the suburbs of
Leningrad, as well as the Museum of the History of the City and the
Summer Palace of Peter I were kept in the cathedral.
Since 1948,
it has been functioning as the St. Isaac's Cathedral Museum. Restoration
work was carried out in the 1950s and 1960s. An observation deck is
arranged on the dome, from where a panorama of the central part of the
city opens.
From 1931 to 1986, the Foucault pendulum functioned
inside the temple, which, thanks to the length of the thread of 98 m,
clearly demonstrated the rotation of the Earth. Currently, the pendulum
has been dismantled and stored in the basement of the cathedral.
In 1990, church services were resumed, currently (2017) they are held
daily.
On September 3, 1991, the State Bank of the USSR issued a
50-ruble commemorative coin with the image of St. Isaac's Cathedral in
the series "500th Anniversary of the United Russian State". The coin is
made of 999 gold with a circulation of 25,000 pieces and weighs 7.78 g.
The cathedral was under the jurisdiction of the State
Museum-monument "St. Isaac's Cathedral".
From 1968 to 2002 Georgy
Butikov was the director of the museum.
The cathedral is under the jurisdiction of the State
Museum-monument "St. Isaac's Cathedral".
From 2002 until January
2008, the director of the museum was Nikolai Nagorsky, from June 3, 2008
- Nikolai Burov (former head of the St. Petersburg Committee for
Culture).
In 2012, the reconstruction of the bells, destroyed
around 1930, began. The first bell weighing about 10 tons was cast in
2012. In 2013, 14 bells were made in Voronezh and brought to St.
Petersburg, intended for the southeastern bell tower. In 2015, Bishop
Markell of Tsarskoye Selo consecrated the last 16th bell of the updated
scale weighing about 17 tons - the bell was installed on the
northwestern bell tower of the cathedral. During the procession, all 16
bells installed on three bell towers of the cathedral are used.
On June 15, 2017, Yuri Vitalyevich Mudrov was appointed director of the
museum.
In 2018, St. Isaac's Cathedral was chosen as the Orthodox
symbol of St. Petersburg by voting results.
In 2015, the issue of transferring St. Isaac's
Cathedral under the control of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) was
raised for the third time; in mid-July 2015, Metropolitan Varsonofy
appealed to the city authorities with a request to transfer the
cathedral to the diocese, but was refused. Officials referred to the
fact that in the event of the transfer of the cathedral-museum to the
Russian Orthodox Church, the costs of its maintenance will fall on the
shoulders of the state. On March 28, 2016, Orthodox activists filed a
lawsuit in connection with the refusal to transfer the cathedral to the
Russian Orthodox Church. In April 2016, Metropolitan Varsonofy addressed
the Chairman of the Government of Russia Dmitry Medvedev with a repeated
request to transfer St. Isaac's Cathedral, the Savior on Spilled Blood
and the building of the Smolny Monastery to the Russian Orthodox Church.
On January 10, 2017, the governor of St. Petersburg, Georgy
Poltavchenko, announced that the issue of transferring St. Isaac's
Cathedral to the use of the Russian Orthodox Church had been resolved,
but the building would fully retain its museum and educational function.
The St. Petersburg Union of Museum Workers regarded the transfer of
the cathedral to the Russian Orthodox Church as the liquidation of the
museum. Museum director Nikolai Burov said that as a result of the
transfer of the cathedral, about 160 museum employees may lose their
work.
On January 28, 2017, an uncoordinated rally of citizens
against the transfer of the cathedral to the Russian Orthodox Church
took place on the Field of Mars in St. Petersburg, and at the same time,
an action of citizens agreed with the mayor's office - supporters of the
transfer of the cathedral. According to various sources, from 1,500 to
5,000 people took part in the action against the transfer of the
cathedral, and several dozen people took part in the action of
supporters of the transfer of the cathedral.
On February 12,
2017, after a meeting with deputies of the city Legislative Assembly,
the townspeople surrounded the cathedral with two living rings of the
protesters, the press called this action the "Blue Ring".
On
February 19, 2017, a religious procession took place, which brought
together up to 8 thousand citizens who support the transfer of St.
Isaac's Cathedral to the Russian Orthodox Church. The procession was
attended by priests, youth from parishes of the St. Petersburg
Metropolis, students of the Theological Academy and other universities,
members of Cossack organizations, Orthodox activists, parishioners of
city churches, bikers from the Night Wolves motorcycle club, fans of the
Zenit football club.
On March 13, 2017, the Smolninsky District
Court of St. Petersburg decided to bring the Russian Orthodox Church and
the Ministry of Culture as defendants in a lawsuit filed by a group of
citizens (Boris Vishnevsky and others) against the Property Relations
Committee of St. Petersburg regarding the use of St. Isaac's Cathedral.
On March 16, the Smolninsky court dismissed the case.
On March
14, 2017, Vice Governor Vladimir Kirillov announced that on that day the
administration of St. Petersburg had not received an official request
from the Russian Orthodox Church to transfer St. Isaac's Cathedral for
free use. On May 3, 2017, Governor Georgy Poltavchenko confirmed that
the Government of St. Petersburg had not received an application from
the Russian Orthodox Church to transfer the building of St. Isaac's
Cathedral for use.
On October 5, 2017, an audit of the Department
of Economic Security and Anti-Corruption of the Main Directorate of the
Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for St. Petersburg and the
Leningrad Region on facts of corruption and abuse by the museum
management, initiated by the State Duma of the Russian Federation,
began.
On December 7, 2018, Metropolitan Varsonofy consecrated
the chapel of St. Catherine (before that, liturgies were celebrated only
in the chapel of Alexander Nevsky, and on holidays - on the main
throne).
On December 30, 2018, the order on the transfer of St.
Isaac's Cathedral to the use of the Russian Orthodox Church for 49
years, which was given on December 30, 2016, became invalid. The
agreement with the Russian Orthodox Church was supposed to be concluded
within two years from the date of issuance of the order, but the
spiritual department has not yet sent an official application. On March
29, 2019, RBC, citing an unnamed source in the government and an
interlocutor close to the Ministry of Culture, published information
that "the issue of transferring St. Isaac's Cathedral to the Russian
Orthodox Church is no longer on the agenda." Later, the press service of
the government drew the attention of journalists that St. Isaac's
Cathedral is the property of St. Petersburg, and not federal property.
In 2022, a decision was made to restore the murals “Saint Alexander
Nevsky praying before the cross for the liberation of the Fatherland”,
“Victory of St. Alexander Nevsky over the Swedes”, “Christian death of
St. Alexander Nevsky” and “Transfer of the relics of St. Alexander
Nevsky from Vladimir to St. Petersburg in 1724".
Height - 101.5 m, internal area - more than 4000 m².
St. Isaac's Cathedral is an outstanding example of
late classicism, also called the latest building in this style, in which
new trends are already emerging (neo-Renaissance, Byzantine style,
eclecticism).
The temple is five-domed with a dominating central
hemispherical dome and four small domes ending with square bell towers.
The belfries are located in 4 small domes on the sides of the large one
(in the 19th century, 11 bells were cast for the temple by the Valdai
master I. M. Stukolkin, the largest of them weighed about 29 tons). The
large dome is crowned with an octagonal lantern. The facades are
decorated with porticos of the Corinthian order - from the north and
south, more solemn, sixteen-column, overlooking the square, from the
east and west - eight-column porticos. The main entrance, in violation
of custom, is located in the western portico, and has no eastern
entrance. Triangular pediments are decorated with sculptural groups. The
building is rectangular in plan, taking into account the porticoes, its
outline is an almost equal-ended cross. The cathedral stands on a
plinth, a stereobath with two wide steps. Only five domes and a central
layout connect the building with the tradition of Orthodox architecture.
The height of the cathedral is 101.5 m, length (including porticos)
111.3 m, width - 97.6. The outer diameter of the dome is 25.8 m, the
inner diameter is 21.8 m. The building is decorated with 112 monolithic
granite columns of various sizes. The walls are lined with light gray
Ruskeala marble, part of the facing slabs, cracked due to uneven
settlement of the building, were replaced during restoration work in the
1870-1890s with bardillio marble.
The cathedral is the tallest
building of the architectural complex, which includes four squares of
the city (Admiralty, Palace, St. Isaac's and Senate) and facing the Neva
in the north. The axis of the building, located in the depths of St.
Isaac's Square, in the north-south direction coincides with the axis of
the square. On the north side of Isaac there is the Alexander Garden,
and on the opposite, south side, there is a square, which was laid out
immediately after the construction of the cathedral was completed. Due
to its position, the cathedral is perfectly visible from all sides; in
the distance, some disproportion of the building and the massiveness of
the sculptural decoration are hidden. The best view (according to
Nikitin) of Isaac opens from the University embankment on Vasilyevsky
Island. The cathedral rises framed by the facade of the Admiralty with a
boulevard (left) and the buildings of the Senate and Synod with an arch
(right). Isaac serves as a backdrop for the monument to Peter I, the
panorama is limited at the bottom of the Neva embankment, and the bell
towers and the golden dome are reflected in its waters. With its
monumental forms and richness of decoration, the cathedral rises above
the buildings of the square and even "suppresses with its architectural
power."
More than 350 sculptures adorn the outside of the cathedral building, the leading theme of the sculptural complex is the glorification of Jesus Christ, scenes from his earthly life and the Passion of the Lord. The creators of the monumental decor (sculptors Vitali, Klodt, Lemaire, Loganovsky) managed to achieve harmonious unity with the scale and architectural forms of the building.
The phrase placed in the frieze of the northern
portico - "Lord, by your power the king will rejoice" - can be
considered an expression of the idea of \u200b\u200bthe whole building.
The relief of the pediment of the northern portico is the
"Resurrection of Christ" (1839-1843, sculptor F. Lemaire). In the center
of the composition is Christ rising from the tomb, to the right and left
of him are angels, and behind them are frightened guards and shocked
women. On holidays, high gas lamps were lit in the corners of the
cathedral, above the attic, supported by kneeling angels (sculptor I.P.
Vitali). These sculptures link the lower part of the cathedral with the
dome rising above it.
Statues crowning the pediments: The Apostle
Peter (left) is depicted with the keys to the gates of the kingdom of
heaven. Apostle Paul (right) with a sword, a symbol of his zealous
service to Jesus Christ. Evangelist John (in the center) is depicted
with an eagle - a symbol of the high soaring of his theological thought.
The sculptures in the niches - "Carrying the Cross" (left niche) and
"The Entombment" (right niche) - were made by the sculptor P. K. Klodt.
Doors: (sculptor Vitali) "Entrance to Jerusalem", "Behold the Man",
"Flagellation of Christ", St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, St. Isaac of
Dalmatia, kneeling angels.
On the pediment of the western portico there is a
bas-relief "The Meeting of Isaac of Dalmatia with Emperor Theodosius",
made in 1842-1845 by the sculptor I.P. Vitali. Its plot is the unity of
two branches of power - royal and spiritual (it is no coincidence that
the portico is turned towards the Senate and the Synod). Depicted in the
center of the bas-relief, Isaac of Dalmatia with a cross in his left
hand, the other seems to bless Theodosius, who bowed his head, dressed
in armor. To the left of the emperor is his wife Flacilla. The imperial
couple was associated with Nicholas I and Alexandra Feodorovna, but
these two characters were not given a portrait resemblance. More to the
left are two figures, the first of which resembles the president of the
Academy of Arts A. N. Olenin, and the second - with the minister of the
imperial court and chairman of the Commission for the construction of
the cathedral, Prince P. M. Volkonsky. On the right side are kneeling
warriors. In the left corner of the bas-relief is a small half-naked
figure with a model of the cathedral in his hands - a portrait of the
author of the project of St. Isaac's Cathedral, O. Montferrand. The
inscription on the frieze is "To the King of Kings".
Thomas
(sculptor Vitali) - this apostle is depicted with a square in his left
hand (as an architect), with his right hand stretched forward, with a
surprised expression on his face. He was prone to lack of faith and
believed in the resurrection of Christ only when he touched him.
Bartholomew (sculptor Vitali) - depicted with a cross and a scraper.
Mark (sculptor Vitali) - the evangelist is depicted with a lion,
symbolizing wisdom and courage.
Door: sculptor Vitali: "The
Sermon on the Mount", "The Resurrection of Lazarus", "The Healing of the
Paralytic", Apostle Peter, Apostle Paul, Kneeling Angels.
On the pediment of the southern portico there is a
bas-relief "The Adoration of the Magi" made in 1839-1844 by the sculptor
Vitali. In the center is depicted Mary with a baby sitting on a throne.
She is surrounded by the magi who came to worship, among them the
figures of the Mesopotamian and Ethiopian kings stand out. To the right
of Mary, with his head bowed, stands Joseph. On the left side is an old
man with a child, in the hands of the child is a small casket with
offerings. In the figures of an old man with a child, Mesopotamian and
Ethiopian kings, an Ethiopian slave, individual features are visible;
there is evidence that they were modeled from sitters. The inscription
on the frieze - "My temple will be called the temple of prayer." Andrei
(sculptor Vitali) - in Russia, he is considered the patron saint of the
fleet. Philip (sculptor Vitali). Matthew (sculptor Vitali) - the
evangelist is depicted at the time of work, with an angel behind his
back, a symbol of the purity of deeds and thoughts.
Left niche -
"Annunciation" (sculptor A. V. Loganovsky)
Right niche -
"Massacre of the Innocents" (sculptor A. V. Loganovsky)
Doors:
sculptor Vitali: "Candlemas", "Flight into Egypt", "Christ explains to
St. Scripture in the Temple”, Alexander Nevsky, Archangel Michael,
Kneeling Angels
On the bas-relief of the eastern portico facing Nevsky
Prospekt: "Isaac of Dalmatia stops Emperor Valens" (1841-1845, sculptor
Lemaire). In the center of the bas-relief - Isaac of Dalmatia blocks the
path of Emperor Valens, predicting his imminent death, an experienced
warrior who reigned before Theodosius was the patron of the Arians,
whose teaching was an attempt to revise the Christian teaching. Isaac of
Dalmatia, a follower of Christians, was imprisoned (the bas-relief
depicts the moment when soldiers fetter his hands with chains), and only
Theodosius, a follower of Christian teaching, freed him. The inscription
on the frieze: "In thee, Lord, we hope, let us not be put to shame
forever."
Jacob (sculptor Vitali) is the brother of the
Evangelist John. Simon (sculptor Vitali) - depicted with a saw. This
apostle enlightened Africa with the teachings of Christ, according to
another legend, the British Isles, Babylonia, Persia, and was crucified
on the cross. The saw is a symbol of the torment that all the apostles
had to experience.
Luke (sculptor Vitali) - the evangelist is
depicted with a calf, symbolizing the holiness of the covenant. He
preached in Libya, Egypt, Macedonia, Italy and Greece and, according to
one version, died peacefully at the age of 80; according to another, he
was martyred and, for lack of a cross, was hanged on an olive tree.
At a height of 43 meters above the ground around the drum of the dome, there is a colonnade consisting of 24 columns, 14 meters long and weighing up to 67 tons. The drum has 12 giant windows. Two spiral staircases of 200 steps lead to the colonnade and a beautiful panorama of the city opens from there. The entrance to the colonnade is from the south side of the cathedral, and the exit is from the north.
The building of the cathedral is of the cross-domed
type. There are three altars in the cathedral; Its interior space,
divided into three naves, does not give the impression of integrity - it
is created not by architectural means, but by decorative design. In the
project of interior decoration, Montferrand assigned the main place not
to continuous wall painting, as was customary in Orthodox churches, but
to the decoration of large surfaces with marble of various colors. Thus,
the viewer's attention should have been focused on the paintings of the
ceiling of the dome, the sails of the vaults. The interior design
combined Byzantine, Renaissance, Baroque and modern Western European
(Italian and French) traditions.
The walls are lined with white
Italian marble, the bottom of the walls - with black slate, the columns
and pilasters - with light pink and cherry Tivdia. Marbles of saturated
colors (green, red, yellow, bright red with white inclusions),
Solomenskaya breccia were also used in the interior decor. The floor is
lined with slabs of light and dark gray Ruskeala marble, as well as pink
and cherry red Tivdi marble. The carved iconostasis is made of white
marble, finished with malachite and Badakhshan lapis lazuli. Its lower
part is lined with Shoksha quartz, the steps leading to the altar are
made of the same material.
The sculptural decoration of the
interior plays a key role in creating an artistic image and semantic
unity, as in a Catholic church. However, unlike the Catholic church,
where the traditional artistic and plastic decoration took shape over
the centuries, the sculptural complex of the interior of Isaac did not
form an integral ensemble, it was created under the influence of several
styles and falls into several groups with different artistic value. The
decoration of the drum of the main dome, decided in the spirit of the
Italian Renaissance, is recognized by art historians as the most
successful. Twelve caryatid angels with elongated proportions of figures
emphasize the vertical division of the drum, between them are placed
paintings with images of the apostles. Using the same type, Vitali,
constantly changing it, giving the figures dynamic poses, managed to
avoid monotony. The sculptural decoration of the vaults (here the works
of the Italian Baroque served as a model), despite the high skill of
execution, did not turn out so organic: its connection with the internal
architecture is very weak. Massive sculpture, complemented by a complex
empire-style ornament, coupled with chandeliers visually lowers the
vaults.
The sculptural decoration of the three internal doors of
the cathedral according to the drawings of Montferrand was performed by
Vitali and R. Zaleman. Moreover, Vitali deviated from tradition and gave
the images of saints characteristic portrait features, reminiscent of
sketches of workers that the sculptor made at a construction site.
A stained-glass window was introduced into the interior of an
Orthodox church - originally an element of decoration of Catholic
churches. Its area is 28.5 square meters, the height is 9.5 meters, the
parts are fastened with lead solders. The image of the Resurrection of
Christ is a key monument in the history of stained glass art in Russia.
The appearance of a glass picture in the cathedral church of the capital
was the result of the interaction of Western and Eastern Christian
traditions, a kind of synthesis of a figurative Catholic stained-glass
window and an altar Orthodox icon. The appearance of a stained-glass
window in the main church of Russia introduced this type of monumental
art into the design system of the country's Orthodox churches. The image
of the Resurrected Savior on the altar window of St. Isaac's Cathedral
has become an iconographic model for many stained-glass windows in
Russian churches, both in the 19th century and in our time.
St.
Isaac's Cathedral presents a unique collection of monumental paintings
of the first half of the 19th century - 150 panels and paintings.
The works devoted to the cathedral and published until
the end of the 19th century, basically only described the history of the
cathedral, its design and construction, and the shrines stored in it.
There was no art criticism as such at that time. Usually, the authors
noted one drawback of the building - its insufficient illumination
(especially in the northern and southwestern parts), due to which it was
impossible to see the painting of the upper tiers. In a separate body of
publications, St. Isaac's Cathedral is considered only as a religious
building. Among them - a series produced by the headman of the cathedral
Bogdanovich "Chair of St. Isaac's Cathedral", books by Archpriest
Smirnov and others. The theme of the merger of the two authorities,
secular and ecclesiastical, the embodiment of which was the temple, is
carried out in the works "The Reign of Nicholas I" and A.P. Uzanov.
The art history analysis of the structure began in the second half
of the 19th century. In 1865, a description of St. Isaac's Cathedral
with drawings and plans was published, compiled according to official
documents by the priest of the cathedral V. Serafimov, which was later
republished. Subsequently, the works of Pyotr Gnedich (“History of Arts
from Ancient Times”, 1885) and Vladimir Stasov were published. Gnedich
does not speak directly about St. Isaac's Cathedral, however, in his
book, two of the five illustrations depict the appearance of the
cathedral and its interior. Next to the image of Isaac there is a text
where Gnedich talks about the "false classical style" - a superficial
imitation of "bad late Roman models", transferring only external forms
without a deep understanding of the essence of classical ancient art.
The first to criticize St. Isaac's Cathedral was Stasov, who called
it "a dry and impossible building with a lot of shortcomings." His
largely controversial judgments, however, gave direction to the study
and evaluation of the building from an art history point of view.
An artistic analysis of the cathedral was presented in Igor Grabar's
History of Russian Art (1910-1913). The art critic believed that the
original design of the cathedral, known at that time from the surviving
model, was much better than the final version of the building. Later
elements of decor - complex luxurious architraves of spans and doors,
heavy angels with torches, pilasters with rake - belonged to the
so-called Nikolaev classicism, and in the era of Alexander I, such
architecture "would have seemed too bourgeois". From an artistic point
of view, the composition of the five-domed cathedral was also called
unsuccessful, to correct which the architect, wanting to connect the
small domes with the main body, came up with the technique of four
ledges in the plan, on which he placed the domes. Best of all, according
to Grabar, Montferrand succeeded in imposing porticos with grandiose
granite columns.
After the 1917 revolution in literature, St.
Isaac's Cathedral was presented as a "hotbed of obscurantism." The works
of V. A. Belyaev, E. I. Vostokov, L. Finn, sustained in a similar
spirit, are not scientific and are interesting only as evidence of time.
Art critic Alexei Nekrasov in his monograph "Russian Empire" (1935),
although he attributed the cathedral to the late Empire, noted the
general eclecticism of the building: the researcher compared the main
dome with the dome of the Church of St. Nicholas in Potsdam, architect
Karl Schinkel; Nekrasov considered the western pediment, reminiscent of
classicism in proportions, to be so overloaded with sculptural
decoration that even for the powerful columns supporting it, it seemed
excessively heavy; in the details of the cathedral, the author found the
splendor of Renaissance architecture, but noted their inconsistency with
each other, and called the five-dome system far from the compactness and
expressiveness of the temples of Vasily Stasov. According to Nekrasov,
the significance of the cathedral for the architecture of Russia lay in
the plane of picturesqueness of its individual parts, both in the
exterior and in the interior.
In 1939, a monograph by Nikolai
Nikitin, curator and restorer of the cathedral, Auguste Montferrand.
Design and construction of St. Isaac's Cathedral and the Alexander
Column. Valery Shuisky, a contemporary researcher of the work of Auguste
Montferrand, believed that Nikitin's book was written "from the position
of the vulgar sociology that prevailed in Soviet times and the
uncompromising struggle against cosmopolitanism." The original author's
text of the monograph, preserved in the form of a linotype, casts doubt
on Shuisky's judgment. Nikitin's work formed the basis of the museum's
excursion work in the cathedral in Soviet times. In 1940 and 1945, based
on his research, the restorer defended his dissertations “Uneven
settlement and deformation of the building of the Anti-Religious Museum
(former St. Isaac’s Cathedral)” and “Auguste Montferrand. Design and
construction of St. Isaac's Cathedral and the Alexander Column.
Art historians Natalya Evsina and Nikolai Khomutetsky in their major
Soviet study “History of Russian Art” noted that the building of the
cathedral, conceived during the heyday of Russian classicism, was built
at a time when this style turned from progressive into reactionary, and
because of this, the temple, although it belonged to one of the largest,
most complex and interesting structures that completed the development
of classicism in Russia, at the same time, its architecture showed the
shortcomings characteristic of the works of the period of the second
third of the 19th century. Using the example of St. Isaac's Cathedral,
one can see how by the middle of the century the ideas about the
monumentality of the architecture of buildings were distorted: the rigor
and noble simplicity of the beginning of the century were replaced by a
desire for pomposity, expressed in the congestion of facades with decor,
the complication of the plasticity of walls, and the excessive
enrichment of interior decoration. At the same time, the researchers
noted the positive effect of the construction of a grandiose cathedral
on the development of the Russian architectural school, which gave
impetus to the development of building technology and the training of
numerous builders and architects.
Architectural historians
Tatyana Slavina and Vladimir Pilyavsky wrote that the main advantage of
the cathedral was the “collegiate nature of the creative process”: “it
is not so much the idea that triumphs here, but its implementation.” The
scope of the construction was matched by an unprecedented amount of
technical work, which became a testing ground for testing and
implementing the latest technologies. The researchers wrote that, in
general, St. Isaac's Cathedral, "excellently meeting the criterion of"
magnificence ", adequately completed the search for architectural
imagery corresponding to the spirit of the Russian Empire, which was
carried out by several generations of Russian architects."
Already in 1841, Montferrand himself noted that due to
uneven sedimentation in the marble slabs with which the walls were
sheathed, cracks appeared at the junctions of the bell towers with the
wall. However, Montferrand reported to the Commission that the
settlement of the building had already ceased. The changes that affected
the columns turned out to be more serious - the settled bell towers
"pulled the entire pediment behind them" (Nikitin), and the columns
associated with the architrave deviated from the vertical. For those
whose deviation was large enough, cracks appeared in its direction in
the lower part of the rods, and on the opposite side of the base of the
rods, the columns (beds) rose up. It was impossible to return the
columns to their original position, and in order to ensure the operation
of the entire bed, Montferrand decided to hammer copper wedges into the
gaps between the beds and granite ingots. To hide the wedges and cracks
in the shelf, a bronze fillet was put on the upper roller of the bronze
base of the column.
A special committee was set up to monitor the
course of the settlement, but no measurements of the resulting
deformations were made. In 1846, the committee announced that the
settlement had not affected the strength of the cathedral and that its
process was completed. However, the marble cladding of the facades
continued to burst, the columns deviated from the vertical (the maximum
deviation was 160 mm), and marble modillions began to fall from the
cornice. In 1873, when the architraves cracked due to a change in their
original position, it was decided to overhaul the cathedral. The columns
were given a vertical position, for which they arranged scaffolding that
took the load of entablature with pediments, bronze capitals were
removed and the upper parts of the columns were cut down. Cracked
Ruskeala marble facing slabs on the façade were also replaced. Repair
work was completed by 1898. In his report at the III Congress of
Architects (1900), their leader E. Sabaneev described in detail the
progress of work and noted in conclusion that, according to many years
of observations, the building had stopped settling, which means that the
columns should no longer change their position.
After a while, it
became clear that the uneven settlement of the building continued. In
1927, N. P. Nikitin, who had been monitoring the state of the cathedral
since 1918, conducted an instrumental survey of deformations. Nikitin
determined the deviations of the columns of the porticos from the
vertical, the direction and magnitude of the settlement of the
foundations (it turned out to be the most uniform in the parts remaining
from the construction of Rinaldi) of the main building, leveled the
floor of the cathedral and the porticoes, the upper cast-iron balustrade
and the bases of the round granite portico, as well as the laying rows
in niches of pylons - where they are not covered with marble facing. The
sedimentary movement of the building, according to the results of the
survey, went in the direction from east to west and from north to south
(central part) and from southeast to northwest (pylons, cast-iron
balustrade, granite portico bases). The greatest deviation was found in
the columns embedded in the bell towers. The foundations of the columns
were repaired, for this it was necessary to saw and remove their bronze
bases. The breakaway pieces of granite were removed, the cracks were
washed and filled with cement mortar, the gaps between the base and the
base of the columns were concreted, the bases were tightened with iron
clamps.
In 1939, another instrumental survey was carried out, it
turned out that the changes in the vertical deviations of the axes of
the columns and corners of buildings compared to 1927 were negligible.
In 1941-1942, as a result of leveling the vaults of the upper ceiling,
the reasons for their deformation were determined, and the vaults were
strengthened. The state of the load-bearing structures seemed to be a
much more serious problem for the restorers - in 1950 their significant
old damage was opened. It was necessary to find out how dangerous they
are, and to develop methods for their elimination. In 1953, specialists
from the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute took up the study of the main
load-bearing structures. The specialists of the institute came to the
conclusion that the foundation of the cathedral is in a stable state,
the condition of the laying of the foundations was determined as “quite
good”, the wooden piles could not be subject to rotting, since the level
of their heads was below the groundwater level. The strength of the
piles was checked by calculating the stresses in their sections and
found to be sufficient.
Another serious task was to determine the
strength of the pylons and the nature of the deformations (cracks) that
were found in their niches. In 1910, Academician M. Preobrazhensky
performed a static calculation, according to which the stress in the
vertical part of the pylons was three times more than the allowable one.
Professor P. I. Dmitriev, having made his calculation in the same 1910,
came to the conclusion that the stress of the pylons exceeds the
allowable for brickwork. In 1953, the commission of the Polytechnic
Institute examined the pylons, made new static calculations and
confirmed the conclusion that the central pylons were overstressed.
Several projects have been proposed to increase the strength of
load-bearing structures. However, due to later doubts that the latter
were in disrepair, none of the projects was implemented. From 1965 to
1966, pylons (including wall pylons) were examined by non-destructive
methods. The cracks discovered earlier were not through (their depth
varied from 20 to 100 cm), and the strength of the brickwork in the
places of the chambers and niches was recognized as sufficient to ensure
the further reliable operation of the building. The reasons for the
appearance of cracks in the pylons were recognized as "the physical and
mechanical properties of brickwork and granite laying rows", as well as
the impact of the microclimate of the cathedral's premises.
According to the professor of St. Petersburg Polytechnic University
Valery Golod, “from a mechanical point of view, the state of the
cathedral is in an emergency. The margin of safety is sometimes from two
to six times. But what part of this reserve has been exhausted, and what
part continues to hold the structure? You can't turn a blind eye to
this."