Museum complex “St. Isaac's Cathedral. "Museum of Four Cathedrals"

And the Sahaki Cathedral took 40 years to build, and when the scaffolding was finally removed from it, the need for a structure like a temple disappeared almost immediately. About who built the famous temple, how many reconstructions it went through and what legends surround it - in the material of the portal "Culture.RF".

Three predecessors of St. Isaac's Cathedral

Saint Isaac's Cathedral. Photo: rossija.info

Saint Isaac's Cathedral by Auguste Montferrand became the fourth cathedral built on this square. The first church in honor of St. Isaac of Dalmatia was erected for workers of the Admiralty shipyards almost immediately after the founding of St. Petersburg. Or rather, it was rebuilt from a drafting barn under the leadership of Harman van Boles. Peter I, born on the feast day of St. Isaac, married Catherine I here in 1712. Already in 1717, when the old church began to deteriorate, a new stone building was laid. Construction proceeded under the leadership of Georg Mattarnovi and Nikolai Gerbel. Half a century later, when the second Peter the Great Church fell into disrepair, a third building was founded - in a different place, a little further from the bank of the Neva. Its architect was Antonio Rinaldi.

Victory of the draftsman over the architects

Semyon Shchukin. Portrait of Alexander I. 1800s. State Russian Museum

Evgeny Plyushar. Portrait of Auguste Montferrand. 1834. State Russian Museum

The competition for the construction of the current St. Isaac's Cathedral was announced in 1809 by Alexander I. Among its participants were the best architects of their time - Andrian Zakharov, Andrei Voronikhin, Vasily Stasov, Giacomo Quarenghi, Charles Cameron. However, none of their projects satisfied the emperor. In 1816, on the advice of the head of the Committee for Buildings and Hydraulic Works, Augustine Betancourt, work on the cathedral was entrusted to the young architect Auguste Montferrand. This decision was surprising: Montferrand did not have much experience in construction - he established himself not with buildings, but with drawings.

Unsuccessful start of construction

The architect's inexperience played a role. In 1819, construction of the cathedral began according to Montferrand's design, but just a year later his project was thoroughly criticized by Anton Mauduit, a member of the Committee for Buildings and Hydraulic Works. He believed that Montferrand made grave mistakes when planning the foundations and pylons (support pillars). This was due to the fact that the architect wanted to make the most of the fragments that remained from the Rinaldi Cathedral. Although at first Montferrand fought off Mauduit's criticism with all his might, later he nevertheless agreed with the criticism - and construction was suspended.

Architectural and engineering achievements

Issakievsky Cathedral. Photo: fedpress.ru

Issakievsky Cathedral. Photo: boomsbeat.com

In 1825, Montferrand designed a new grandiose building in the classicist style. Its height was 101.5 meters, and the diameter of the dome was almost 26 meters. Construction proceeded extremely slowly: it took 5 years to create the foundation alone. For the foundation, it was necessary to dig deep trenches into which tarred piles were driven - more than 12 thousand pieces. After this, all the trenches were connected to each other and filled with water. With the onset of cold weather, the water froze, and the piles were cut down to the level of the ice. It took another two years to install the columns of four covered galleries - porticoes, granite monoliths for which were supplied from Vyborg quarries.

Over the next six years, walls and dome pillars were erected, and another four years - vaults, domes and bell towers. The main dome was made not of stone, as was traditionally done, but of metal, which significantly lightened its weight. When designing this structure, Montferrand was guided by the dome of London's St. Paul's Cathedral by Christopher Wren. More than 100 kilograms of gold were used to gild the dome.

Contribution of sculptors to the design of the cathedral

The sculptural decoration of the cathedral was created under the direction of Ivan Vitali. By analogy with the Golden Gate of the Florentine Baptistery, he made impressive bronze doors with images of saints. Vitali also created the statues of the 12 apostles and angels on the corners of the building and above the pilasters (flat columns). Bronze reliefs depicting biblical scenes performed by Vitali himself and Philippe Honoré Lemaire were placed above the pediments. Pyotr Klodt and Alexander Loganovsky also participated in the sculptural design of the temple.

Stained glass, stone trim and other interior details

Issakievsky Cathedral. Photo: gopiter.ru

Issakievsky Cathedral. Photo: ok-inform.ru

Work on the interiors of the cathedral took 17 years and ended only in 1858. The inside of the temple was decorated with valuable types of stones - lapis lazuli, malachite, porphyry, and various types of marble. The main artists of their time worked on the painting of the cathedral: Fyodor Bruni painted “The Last Judgment”, Karl Bryullov painted “The Virgin Mary in Glory” in the ceiling; the area of ​​this painting is more than 800 square meters.

The iconostasis of the cathedral was built in the form of a triumphal arch and decorated with monolithic malachite columns. The icons, made using the mosaic technique, were created based on the original paintings of Timofey Neff. Not only the iconostasis, but also a significant part of the temple walls were decorated with mosaics. In the window of the main altar there was a stained glass window depicting the “Resurrection of Christ” by Heinrich Maria von Hess.

Expensive pleasure

Issakievsky Cathedral. Photo: rpconline.ru

Issakievsky Cathedral. Photo: orangesmile.com

At the time of construction, St. Isaac's Cathedral became the most expensive temple in Europe. Just laying the foundation took 2.5 million rubles. In total, Isaac cost the treasury 23 million rubles. For comparison: the entire construction of the Trinity Cathedral, commensurate with St. Isaac's, cost two million. This was due both to its grandiose size (the 102-meter high temple still remains one of the largest cathedrals in the world) and to the luxurious interior and exterior decoration of the building. Nicholas I, taken aback by such expenses, ordered savings at least on utensils.

Consecration of the temple

The consecration of the cathedral was held as a state holiday: Alexander II was present, and the event lasted about seven hours. There were spectator seats around the cathedral, tickets for which cost a lot of money: from 25 to 100 rubles. Enterprising townspeople even rented apartments with a view of St. Isaac's Cathedral, from where they could watch the ceremony. Despite the fact that there were many who wanted to attend the event, many of them did not appreciate St. Isaac’s Cathedral, and at first, because of its proportions, the temple bore the nickname “Inkwell.”

Myths and legends

Issakievsky Cathedral. Photo: rosfoto.ru

It was rumored that such a long construction of the cathedral was not caused by the complexity of the work, but by the fact that a clairvoyant predicted Montferrand's death immediately after the completion of the temple. And indeed, the architect died a month after the consecration of Isaac. The architect's will - to bury him in the temple - was never fulfilled. The coffin with the architect's body was carried around the temple, and then handed over to the widow, who took the remains of her husband to Paris. After Montferrand's death, passers-by allegedly saw his ghost wandering along the steps of the cathedral - he did not dare to enter the temple. According to another legend, the house of the Romanovs was supposed to fall after the removal of the scaffolding that surrounded the cathedral long after its consecration. Coincidence or not, the forests were finally removed in 1916, and in March 1917, Nicholas II was evacuated. Since the German pilots used the dome of the cathedral as a landmark, they did not shoot directly at the cathedral - and the vault remained undamaged. However, the cathedral did suffer during the war: fragments that exploded near the temple damaged the columns, and the cold (during the years of the siege of St. Isaac's was not heated) damaged the wall paintings.

St. Isaac's Cathedral is one of the most monumental and majestic sights of St. Petersburg. This Orthodox church is one of the tallest domed buildings in the world. The height of St. Isaac's Cathedral is 101.5 m, the diameter of the dome is 21.8 m. The area of ​​the temple is about 4,000 sq. m. St. Isaac's Cathedral can accommodate 12 thousand people. The colonnade of St. Isaac's Cathedral is the best observation deck in St. Petersburg. You can climb to the top of the colonnade via an internal staircase, overcoming 211 steps, from where a magnificent panorama of the central part of the city opens.

The official name is the Cathedral of St. Isaac of Dalmatia. The history of the museum-monument begins in 1928, when the exhibition “History of the Construction of St. Isaac’s Cathedral” was opened in St. Isaac’s Cathedral.

During the Great Patriotic War and the siege of Leningrad, exhibits from the city museums and suburban palaces of Petrodvorets, Pavlovsk, Pushkin and Gatchina were transported to St. Isaac's Cathedral for preservation.

In January 1963, the St. Isaac's Cathedral museum-monument became a branch of the State Museum of the History of Leningrad.

One of the significant events in the life of the museum was the resumption of services in monument churches: in 1990, for the first time after the closure of St. Isaac's Cathedral as an operating temple. St. Isaac's Cathedral received its voice back - specially cast bells took their place on the belfries.

Today, the State Museum-Monument "St. Isaac's Cathedral" is a generally recognized all-Russian cultural center, a multifunctional museum institution that creates in visitors a feeling of the special atmosphere of a modern museum. The museum creates new displays, exhibitions and excursion projects, sacred music sounds under the arches of churches, socio-cultural events and scientific forums are held.

St. Isaac's Cathedral is included in the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage List.

Operating mode:

Museum-monument "St. Isaac's Cathedral"— from 10:30 to 18:00.

Day off is Wednesday. Evening programs of the museum - from 18:00 to 22:30 (from May 1 to September 30, closed on Wednesdays).

Colonnade of St. Isaac's Cathedral— from 10:30 to 18:00 (from May 1 to October 31 daily). From November 1 to April 30, the day off is the third Wednesday of the month.

Evening colonnade - from 18:00 to 22:30 (from May 1 to October 31). Colonnade during the “white nights” - from 22:30 to 4:30 (valid from June 1 to August 20, closed on Wednesday).

Isaakievskaya sq., 1

First incarnations

By his appearance Saint Isaac's Cathedral obliged to Peter I. Peter was born on May 30, the day of Isaac of Dalmatia, a Byzantine monk who was once canonized. It was decided to build a temple in honor of this saint at the Admiralty. For the new church, it was decided to convert the former Admiralty drafting room. In the summer of 1707, a small wooden building covered with planks with ten mica windows appeared to the south of the shipyard. It was here that on February 19, 1712, Peter I married his wife Catherine.

By 1717, there was not a single stone church on Admiralty Island. First of all, they decided to make St. Isaac's Church like this: " In the last year of August 717, on the 8th day... the Yaroslavl district ordered the peasant Yakov Neupokoev at the Admiralty to build a stone church according to the outline of the architect Maternovia"[Quoted from: 1, p. 169]. At the same time, it was decided to build a new temple closer to the bank of the Neva, approximately where the famous “Bronze Horseman” now stands. At first, construction was carried out quickly. He who led it from 1719 (after his death Mattarnovi) N.F. Gerbel in July 1721 already requested ropes and ropes for lifting rafters onto the erected walls.

Peter I wanted to see St. Isaac's Church similar to St. Peter's Church in Riga. A drawing of a spire was drawn up for him there, which was sent to St. Petersburg. The architect Trezzini and the engineer Hermann van Boles, who had proven themselves well in working with the spire of the Peter and Paul Cathedral, were chosen to install this complex engineering structure. In November 1722, Domenico Trezzini examined and described the church:

“[The building was built] with a length of twenty sazhens and a half and a half a quarter of an inch, a width of ten sazhens, a height from the foundation of a gymz of five sazhens and five quarters of an arshin and three vershoks, walls with a thickness between windows of one and a half arshins and five vershoks with extended blades of thickness two arshins and three vershoks. Where the dome is fourteen fathoms and one arshin wide... The dome above the middle is made of an osmiangular round width of four fathoms and three feet, the height from the foundation is thirteen fathoms two arshins and two vershok and a half, the width is five fathoms one arshin one and a half vershok ... The vaults above the church and the altar and above the pillars of the arch are built with a thickness of one brick in the castle. It is not smeared with lime and not bleached, which must be smeared and whitened" [Cit. from: 1, p. 169, 170].

In 1723, Peter I signed a decree that sailors of the Baltic Fleet should take the oath only in this temple.

On September 11, 1724, the director of the Office of Buildings, U.A. Senyavin, announced that serious damage had been discovered in the vaults of St. Isaac's Church. A week later, architects Trezzini, van Zwieten, B. Rastrelli and architecture student M. G. Zemtsov submitted a report to the Chancellery on ways to eliminate the shortcomings. On June 7, 1725, the Office of Buildings determined:

“In St. Isaac’s Church, the vault of which has been damaged, the architect Gaitan Chiaveri should disassemble... And the vault should not be made with a wooden or stone mold, having reported to Her Majesty the Empress... the decree will be carried out henceforth. And the architect Trezin does not know about that structure for the purpose of he, the architect Trezin, is burdened with many other matters" [Cit. from: 1, p. 234].

To decide on the type of new vault to be built and methods of strengthening the walls, a commission was assembled from the architects Trezzini, Chiaveri, Zemtsov, “architectural Gezels” Timofey Usov and Peter Eropkin. The commission decided to strengthen the walls of the church with iron ties and build external buttresses.

In May 1726, Catherine I ordered an angel with a cross to be made for St. Isaac's Church. The following May she changed her mind about the material for the vault. Instead of stone, it was decided to use wood. Two months later, the empress ordered the construction of a dome and a wooden spire next year. For this purpose, the architects Trezzini and Chiaveri were commissioned to draw up the corresponding drawings. The latter reported to the Office of the Buildings that the damage to the stone walls of the bell tower had not yet been repaired, after which a commission of architects Trezzini, Zemtsov, Usov and Eropkin examined the bell tower and issued its decision to correct it.

The consecration of St. Isaac's Church took place on May 30, 1727. Immediately after this, the first wooden church was dismantled. In 1728-1729, 20 round stone pillars on pedestals were installed around the bell tower to strengthen the walls and vaults, thus creating a covered gallery. By September 1729, a wooden dome with a lantern was installed on the bell tower. At that time the temple was painted white.

On April 21, 1735, the spire caught fire from lightning. As a result, the entire temple burned down. Its restoration was entrusted to the architect Pietro Antonio Trezzini, who found a way to restore the building without dismantling the rickety bell tower. According to Trezzini's instructions, the vaults and dome were rebuilt, and the interior and exterior decoration were updated. The restoration of St. Isaac's Church continued until 1746.

It was never possible to solve the problems of the second St. Isaac's Church. It was built too close to the Neva - 21 meters from the shore. In addition, the foundation of the building turned out to be too weak. In 1758, architects established:

“Under that church the foundation is weak and narrow, and even more so without piles, and although at some corners and under the middle four pillars the piles are broken, it is very rare, which is why the walls and pillars sit down, but the extra walls are made thin and burst from the built vaults apart, which is why both the walls and the internal pillars swayed individually by one inch... Although for reinforcement, buttresses were previously made on the sides, but even that was of little help, and everything moved away from the walls and the lintels were separated... the bell tower, although reinforced with buttresses, only due to the weakness of the foundation the garden goes down and from the church there is a separation in the walls" [Cit. from: 1, p. 235].

In 1768, Catherine II ordered the construction of the next St. Isaac's Cathedral to begin, now according to the design of Antonio Rinaldi. They began to build the cathedral in a new place, further from the coast, where the modern building is located. Since then, it separates St. Isaac's and Senate Squares. J. Shtelin described the foundation of the temple:

"In July 1768, Her Majesty Empress Catherine II, in the presence of the entire Court, foreign ministers and a huge crowd of people, solemnly laid the foundation stone for the Church of St. Isaac, which was to be built on Admiralty Meadow. Under the mortgage, or cornerstone, where, in fact, it will be an altar was built, various coins minted during Her Majesty's reign were placed, as well as a special medal issued for this occasion.The drawing of this church was executed by the state architect Rinaldi, and the implementation of the construction according to the model made for this purpose was entrusted to the Senate architect Vista, under the main supervision of Mr. General -Lieutenant Count Bruce. It should become the largest and most magnificent church, which has never been in the Russian state" [Cit. from: 1, p. 451].

The new building of St. Isaac's Cathedral was designed to be quite bright and was faced with various types of Russian marble. However, by 1796, by the death of Catherine II, it was only half built.

Paul I, immediately after ascending the throne, ordered that all the remaining marble be transferred to the construction of St. Michael's Castle, and St. Isaac's Cathedral quickly completed in brick. The rush was due to the approaching 100th anniversary of St. Petersburg, large-scale construction in the center of which would not have brightened the holiday. As a result, it was necessary to reduce the height of the bell tower, lower the main dome, and abandon the construction of side domes.

When Antonio Rinaldi left Russia, the walls of the building were covered with marble only up to the cornices. The work was completed by Vincenzo Brenna. The new St. Isaac's Cathedral was completed and consecrated by 1802.

The following epigram was born among the people about this building:

"Behold the monument of two kingdoms,
Decent for both of them,
On the marble bottom
A brick top has been erected."

The quality of construction left much to be desired. During one of the services, damp plaster fell from the ceiling. When they began to understand the reasons for this, they realized that the building was subject to serious alteration. The temple, built hastily according to a truncated design, did not correspond to the status of the main Orthodox church and did not adorn the center of the capital of the Russian Empire.

Construction

In 1809, Alexander I announced a competition for the construction of a new St. Isaac's Cathedral. His personal requirement was to use the altar part of the old temple in the new building. The first one was unsuccessful. Despite the fact that A. N. Voronikhin, A. D. Zakharov, C. Cameron, D. Quarenghi, L. Ruska, V. P. Stasov, J. Thomas de Thomon took part in it, their projects were not accepted by the emperor . All of them proposed to build a new cathedral anew, without using an already built structure.

The creation of the fourth building of St. Isaac's Cathedral was delayed by the Patriotic War of 1812. In 1816, Alexander I again ordered to begin designing the temple. But the second competition did not identify an architect worthy of this work. Then the emperor instructed engineer Augustus Betancourt, chairman of the Committee for Buildings, to find the right master. This turned out to be the French architect Auguste Montferrand. This decision surprised many, since Montferrand was not well known at that time. The architect presented the emperor with 24 cathedral designs in different styles: from Gothic to Chinese. The emperor chose a five-domed temple in the classical style. The emperor's decision was probably influenced by the fact that Montferrand proposed using part of the structures of Rinaldi's cathedral.

The choice of the classical appearance of St. Isaac's Cathedral is justified primarily by the context in which it was built. The architecture of St. Petersburg is focused primarily on Europe, so the main cathedral located in it should also be in the European style, but not, for example, in Byzantine. Because of this, it was immediately clear that the temple would not fully comply with the Orthodox canons of church construction.

As soon as Montferrand's project began to be implemented, errors were immediately found in it. So, the architect hoped to preserve the old pylons. But this turned out to be impossible, since the new and old pylons would have given different drafts. The Academy of Arts created a special commission to correct the project. The architect had to redo his work taking into account all the comments. Montferrand had to abandon the preservation of the old pylons, leaving only its eastern altar part from the Rinaldi Cathedral.

The construction process of St. Isaac's Cathedral was divided into several stages. In 1818-1827, the old church was dismantled and the foundation of a new one was laid.

Taking into account local soil characteristics, 10,762 piles were driven into the base of the foundation. It took five years. Nowadays this method of soil compaction is quite common, but at that time it made a huge impression on the city residents. Then the following joke went around the city. As if when they drove another pile into the ground, it went underground without a trace. After the first, they began to drive in another, but that one also disappeared into the swampy soil. They installed a third, a fourth... Until a letter from New York arrived to the builders in St. Petersburg: “You have ruined our pavement.” - “What do we have to do with this?” - answered from St. Petersburg. - “But on the end of a log sticking out of the ground, there is a mark of the St. Petersburg timber exchange “Gromov and Co.” An answer came from America.

In the second stage, from 1828 to 1830, the columns of four large porticos were installed.

Initially, Montferrand planned to equip the temple only with northern and southern porticoes. On the other two sides, in his opinion, they were inappropriate, since they rested against the walls of neighboring buildings, which made it difficult to see them in their entirety. But Nicholas I insisted on the construction of all four porticoes, citing the need to give the temple a more solemn appearance. The fact that they would not be functional did not matter to the emperor.

Granite for the columns of St. Isaac's Cathedral was mined in quarries on the coast of the Gulf of Finland, near Vyborg. These works were supervised by stonemason Samson Sukhanov and Arkhip Shikhin. Sukhanov invented an original method for extracting huge solid pieces of stone. Workers drilled holes in the granite, inserted wedges into them and hit them until a crack appeared in the stone. Iron levers with rings were placed in the crack, and ropes were threaded through the rings. 40 people pulled the ropes and gradually broke out the granite blocks.

Nikolai Bestuzhev wrote about the transportation of these granite monoliths:

“They got down to business with their usual mechanics: they tied the ship more firmly to the shore - they laid out ropes, logs, boards, wrapped the ropes, crossed themselves - they shouted loud hurray! - and the proud colossi obediently rolled from the ship to the shore, and rolling past Peter, who, It seemed as if he was blessing his sons with his hand; they lay down humbly at the foot of St. Isaac’s Church.”

Delivery of building material from the bank of the Neva to the construction site was carried out on rails purchased abroad. Moreover, this was done long before the first railway appeared in Russia. This greatly facilitated the work, since timber, sand, stone blanks and monoliths were delivered to St. Petersburg by water.

The installation of 48 columns of the porticos was carried out before the construction of the walls of St. Isaac's Cathedral. The first column (the outermost column on the right in the first row of the northern portico) was installed on March 20, 1828, and the last on August 11, 1830. The installation of the first column became an important event in the life of St. Petersburg. The celebration was attended by foreign guests, the royal couple and a large crowd of curious townspeople. In just 45 minutes, a 17-meter column weighing 114 tons was installed before their eyes. A lead box was placed under its base, into which was placed a platinum medal with the image of Alexander I.

From 1830 to 1836, walls and dome pylons were erected. In 1837-1841, vaults, a dome drum and four bell towers were built. The work of installing 24 columns around the central dome was also quite ambitious. Each of them weighs 64 tons. For the first time in construction practice, columns of this weight and size were raised to a height of more than 40 meters.

At the suggestion of Auguste Montferrand, the main dome of the cathedral was created not from brick, but from metal, which significantly reduced its weight. When designing it, the architect used the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral in London as a prototype. It consists of three nested parts. The internal vault rests on a colonnade. It is covered with boards, covered with tarred felt and plastered. Its lower surface, which a visitor to the cathedral sees, was painted by the artist K. P. Bryullov. On the inner vault there is a second one supporting the cathedral lantern. It is painted in a blue background with bronze rays and stars, which creates a picture of a starry sky. The third vault is external, covered with gilded copper sheets. More than 100 kilograms of red gold were spent gilding the dome of St. Isaac's Cathedral.

From 1841 to 1858, the interiors were decorated. When drawing up their projects, Montferrand traveled throughout Italy and France in order to get acquainted with the best examples. The interior project was approved by Nicholas I in January 1843.

St. Isaac's Cathedral took an unusually long time to build. In this regard, there were rumors in St. Petersburg about a deliberate delay in construction. “They say that a visiting clairvoyant predicted Montferrand’s death immediately after construction was completed.” - “That’s why he’s been building for so long.”

These rumors unexpectedly continued in real life. The architect actually died shortly after the completion of the construction of St. Isaac's Cathedral. In this regard, various versions of what happened appeared in St. Petersburg folklore. Many of them refer to the hostile attitude of Emperor Alexander II towards the architect. Allegedly, during the consecration of St. Isaac's Cathedral, someone drew the attention of Alexander II to one of the sculptural decorations of the building. Montferrand left a unique portrait. In the sculptural decor of the western pediment there is a group of saints bowing their heads to greet the appearance of Isaac of Dalmatia. Among them, the sculptor placed the figure of Montferrand with a model of the cathedral in his hands, who, unlike the others, holds his head straight. Having drawn attention to this fact, the emperor did not shake hands with the architect as he passed by, nor did he say a word of gratitude for the work. Montferrand was seriously upset, went home before the end of the consecration ceremony, fell ill and died a month later.

Rumors aside, the delay in construction can be explained by design errors made by Montferrand. They were discovered already during construction, and it took time to eliminate them.

A record amount of money was spent on the construction of the temple. For example, about 2,000,000 rubles were spent on the construction of the large-scale Trinity-Izmailovsky Cathedral, while 2,500,000 rubles were spent on the foundation of St. Isaac's Cathedral alone. Financing was provided from the treasury, despite the budget deficit. The Temple of Isaac of Dalmatia has become the most expensive in Europe. It cost the treasury 23,256,852 rubles and 80 kopecks, excluding the cost of church utensils. The savings with its equipment were very insignificant, but they still existed. Thus, according to the instructions of Nicholas I, the pulpit here was made not of expensive Carrara marble, but of oak. Economy is also determined by the absence of the richest fence around the temple planned by Montferrand. It, like everything connected with the main Orthodox Church, was conceived to be very pompous:

“It was proposed to build a great balustrade, decorated with twenty pedestals. On eight of these pedestals, especially outstanding ones, to put figures of men who enlightened Russia with their faith, and the other twelve to be occupied by grandiose candelabra for gas lighting. Moreover, it was proposed against the three main entrances to put high columns on the porticoes of the cathedral..." [Cit. from: 3, p. 138]

Description

The height of St. Isaac's Cathedral is 101.5 meters. The building weighs 300,000 tons. The cathedral is the fourth largest in the world in size. It is second only to St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome, St. Paul's Cathedral in London and St. Mary's Cathedral in Florence. With an area of ​​4,000 square meters, it can accommodate up to 12,000 people. At the same time, Montferrand himself calculated that the building’s capacity was 7,000. He had to take into account the size of the ladies’ full skirts, as well as the need to “reserve” at least one square meter for each believer.

Being the main temple, St. Isaac's Cathedral is placed on a stereobat - an elevation, which symbolizes approaching God. The steps of the stereobat are made large, larger than a human step, which sets the visitor up for a slow, thoughtful entrance into the cathedral.

The eastern and western porticos of St. Isaac's Cathedral have eight columns each, and the northern and southern ones have sixteen each. This is due to the fact that the latter decorate Senate and St. Isaac's squares, which means they should be more solemn. At the same time, according to Orthodox canons, the main entrance should have been from the west - opposite the altar. This is not revealed in any way in the architecture of the building.

The facade of the building is lined with marble, the thickness of the blocks is 40-50 centimeters.

The main sculptor of St. Isaac's Cathedral was Ivan Petrovich Vitali. He was attracted to the work by Montferrand, who thus found a replacement for the French sculptor Lemaire. I.P. Vitali created the unique doors of the temple. Each of the doors weighs more than 20 tons. For their example, Montferrand chose the “Golden Doors” of the Baptistery by the sculptor Ghiberti. For St. Isaac's Cathedral, an exact life-size copy of them was made, and then Vitali cast them in bronze. The images of saints on the doors are portraits. As a prototype, the sculptor took the images of workers whom Vitali sketched while walking through the construction site.

The sculptural decoration of the exterior of St. Isaac's Cathedral, at the request of Nicholas I, was supplemented with eight figures of angels above the pilasters and four groups of angels with lamps at the corners of the building. The latter were used on church holidays, when gas was lit in the lamps.

Vitali also created the bronze bas-reliefs of the pediments. The bas-relief of the western pediment is called "Saint Isaac and Emperor Theodosius". On the advice of the artist Karl Bryullov, the sculptor gave the faces of the characters in the plot the features of his contemporaries. In the person of Theodosius, Nicholas I himself is shown, the wife of the Byzantine emperor is similar to the sovereign's wife Alexandra Feodorovna, the courtiers Saturnin and Victoria are like the minister of the court Prince Volkonsky and the president of the Academy of Arts Olenin, Saint Isaac of Dalmatia is like Metropolitan Seraphim, a Byzantine architect (as mentioned above) - to Montferrand.

The internal walls of the building, as well as the external ones, are lined with marble. But above the attic, which starts at a height of 43 meters, the planes are treated with stucco, that is, artificial marble, cheaper than natural stone. At such a height, the viewer does not see the substitution.

The central main chapel of the temple is dedicated to Isaac of Dalmatia. The northern one is to the holy noble prince Alexander Nevsky, the southern one is to the holy Great Martyr Catherine.

The cathedral is illuminated by seven bronze gilded chandeliers with 980 candles. In addition to them, there were candelabra, but all this was still not enough for full illumination. Before the advent of electricity in the temple (in 1903), it was so dark that the paintings above the attic were not visible. The headman of the cathedral, E. Bogdanovich, wrote:

"Approaching the cathedral, first of all, you are struck by its vastness and small number of windows<...>All these windows in the dome provide little light to the interior of the temple, where the pilgrims stand, so that the dome, which occupies a relatively small space, is illuminated much more than the temple itself, which is why the latter, with its wealth and artistic works, loses quite a lot... Inside The temple is struck by its gloominess." [Quoted from: 3, pp. 215, 216]

It was proposed to eliminate the problem of insufficient lighting, at least partially, by breaking through a window in the vault above the altar. But in order to preserve the painting of the vault, this was abandoned.

At the direction of Nicholas I, the picturesque decoration of St. Isaac's Cathedral was gradually converted into mosaics. Orders for decorating the interior of the temple were distributed not by competitions, but by the will of the emperor. Thus, the artist T. Neff was involved in the work, who had previously only painted a portrait of Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna.

Above the iconostasis, the artist F. Bruni depicted the painting “The Last Judgment,” which is usually located on the western wall of the temple. It was not possible to do this here, since the corresponding place on the western side is divided into three small parts by the attic and cornice. Because of this, we had to move away from the tradition of the Orthodox Church and place the fourth, sixth and seventh days of God’s creation of the Universe there, and the scene of the Last Judgment in the east above the iconostasis.

Nicholas I commissioned Karl Bryullov to create the painting of the ceiling of St. Isaac's Cathedral. This is the largest painting work in the temple with an area of ​​816 square meters. In the process of working, the painter created hundreds of sketches and sketches of individual characters and details. The painting on the ceiling is called "Theotokos in Glory". According to Bryullov’s plan, the patron saints of the emperors of Russia were immortalized here: John the Theologian, Saint Nicholas, John the Baptist, Saints Peter and Paul, Catherine, Elizabeth, Anna, Alexander Nevsky and Isaac of Dalmatia, Emperor Constantine and Saint Alexei. The artist gave the face of Alexander Nevsky the features of Peter I.

Bryullov worked on the ceiling of St. Isaac's Cathedral from mid-1845 to early 1847. Due to difficult conditions, he fell ill and had to be replaced by P. Basin, who completed “The Virgin in Glory” by the end of 1848. In 1849-1852, Basin, based on Bryullov’s sketches, painted the dome drum, sail vaults and attic.

In memory of the fact that the temple was built during the reign of Nicholas I, in the southwestern ceiling of the bell tower, the artist Riess created an image of Saint Fevronia, the personal patroness of the emperor.

The iconostasis of St. Isaac's Cathedral was created in the 1840s in the classical style in the form of a triumphal arch. Its imperial style is emphasized by 10-meter-high malachite columns. It was they, and not the Royal Doors, as is customary in Orthodox churches, that became the compositional center of the iconostasis. Another violation of the rules was the placement of the northern and southern doors of the main altar not in the iconostasis itself, but in the walls separating the altar from the chapels.

Of the canonical icons, only four are placed in the iconostasis: Jesus Christ, Isaac of Dalmatia, the Mother of God and Child and the Last Supper. The remaining icons are dedicated to the saints, personal patrons of the emperors, during whose reign the construction of all four buildings of St. Isaac's Cathedral was carried out: St. Paul, Great Martyr Catherine, Alexander Nevsky, Nicholas the Wonderworker and Peter. All these icons are mosaiced based on the original paintings by T. Neff. Icons depicting the events of the Gospel are not located in the second tier of the iconostasis, but are scattered throughout the cathedral, being placed in the niches of the pylons. In the iconostasis, their places are occupied by the patron saints of members of the royal family: Prince Vladimir and Princess Olga, Mary Magdalene and Queen Alexandra, Nicholas of Novgorod, Archangel Michael, the righteous Anna and Elizabeth, Equal-to-the-Apostles Tsar Constantine and Queen Helena. These icons were also created using the mosaic technique, made according to the sketches of F. P. Bryullov (brother of Karl Bryullov). Another violation of tradition was the depiction of six holy wives in the iconostasis. All departures from the traditional execution of the iconostasis are due to the need to reflect in it the idea of ​​statehood, to show the unity of the royal and heavenly authorities.

The sculptural group “Christ with Glory” crowning the Royal Doors was made by P. Klodt and T. Neff.

300 kilograms of gold were spent on gilding the interior of St. Isaac's Cathedral.

The altar window of the temple is decorated with stained glass, which is an exceptional event for the Orthodox tradition. The stained glass window of St. Isaac's Cathedral was made by German craftsmen in Germany and was delivered to St. Petersburg in parts. It depicts Jesus Christ in full height, its area is 28 square meters.

Church utensils were created for St. Isaac's Cathedral from government gold for 17,500 rubles by court suppliers Nichols and Plinke. They also placed 26 items made of government silver into the temple. Silversmiths Sezikov and Verkhovtsev placed another 89 items made of state-owned precious metal into the temple. In gratitude for receiving this order, the suppliers made 57 items from their own silver.

Story

The construction of St. Isaac's Cathedral ended with the consecration of the temple on May 30, 1858. For the construction of the temple, Auguste Montferrand received the rank of full state councilor, a lump sum of 40,000 rubles and a pension of 5,000 rubles. The consecration ceremony of the temple began at 9 a.m., which ended with a parade of troops that ended at 4 p.m. All St. Petersburg newspapers described this event in enthusiastic tones, recalling a clear day and a huge crowd of people. Contemporaries also noted the typical Russian features of the event:

“A nasty story connected with this ceremony. During the coronation, Red Square in the Kremlin was covered with red cloth, which cost several thousand arshins... Today, red cloth was again needed to pave the road from the Winter Palace to the cathedral, and the sovereign remembered that coronation, and ordered it to be used. They wrote to Moscow. From there they replied that the cloth was very bad, that moths had eaten it. The Emperor ordered it to be sent as it was. Then it turned out that it did not exist at all, and that it had never been bought, but was rented. Baron Bode, they say, was dismissed, and with him several other people lost their jobs. There is a lot of talk about this story. They say that the cloth was actually bought, that is, the money was put on account, and then the cloth was sold and the money was divided between themselves." [Cit. from: 3, p. 195]

A huge crowd of St. Petersburg residents and city guests attended the consecration ceremony of St. Isaac's Cathedral. Spectator seats were arranged around the temple. In the amphitheater opposite the western portico, boxes cost 100, and a chair cost 25 silver rubles. The windows of the houses closest to the church were rented out for huge sums back in early May.

“From seven o’clock in the morning, the stands built on Petrovskaya and St. Isaac’s Squares began to be covered with spectators. All the windows of the houses standing on the procession’s path were full of colorful ladies’ dresses. The very roofs were covered with people. The ships on the Neva were decorated with flags. We reached the stage, built at the Horse Guards arena, shortly after nine o'clock. A wonderful sight was presented by one of the greatest squares in the world: opposite from us, the golden dome of the cathedral church rose to the sky; its porticoes were covered with a diverse crowd in shiny uniforms; to the left, behind another stage, built near the Admiralty Boulevard, shone the wide ribbon of the Neva and the flags of the ships fluttered; motley masses of troops moved in front of us, taking their places. The large bell hummed solemnly...

Before the train started, the Sovereign Emperor, surrounded by his retinue, toured all the troops and greeted them warmly.

At the hour appointed by the ceremony, a train appeared in the distance. Soon after the Sovereign Emperor, a member of the August Family and Their retinue entered the cathedral, where, in Their presence, the rite of consecration of the temple was performed, a procession of the cross appeared in the distance, preceded by singers in multi-colored robes. The clergy, in white glazed vestments, with banners, images and holy relics carried at the head by the bishop, marched in two rows, in front of which they carried a lantern and a cross. As the procession passed by the regiments, music played the hymn “How Glorious is Our Lord in Zion.” This music, performed by piano, produced an amazing impression: one could hear not instruments, but as if several choirs were singing in the distance. All together - both this touching music of the sacred hymn, and this quiet, solemn, brilliant procession moving in the middle of an immense square, established by troops and framed by thousands of people - presented a spectacle that, of course, everyone who happened to see will not forget for the rest of their life his.

Upon the arrival of the procession, the Sovereign Emperor, the Empress, members of the August Family and retinue left the cathedral. Their Majesties descended to the bottom step. There was singing. Then the procession moved again around the cathedral, accompanied by Their Imperial Majesties and Their Imperial Highnesses; Having walked around the temple, the procession entered the temple." [Quoted from: 3, pp. 197-199]

The ceremony of consecration of the temple has been preserved. It was published in the book by N. Yu. Tolmacheva “St. Isaac’s Cathedral” as an appendix to the main material.

Auguste Montferrand bequeathed to bury him in his main brainchild - St. Isaac's Cathedral. But Alexander II did not fulfill this desire. The coffin with the architect's body was only carried around the temple, after which the widow took it to Paris.

After the opening, the temple was not in the spiritual department, but in the state. After the liquidation of the commission for its construction in 1864, the cathedral came under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Railways and Public Buildings. In 1871, the building was transferred to the Ministry of the Interior.

The treasury annually allocated huge amounts of money for the maintenance of St. Isaac's Cathedral. A large choir sang in the temple. To ensure the ringing of the bells, a staff of 16 people was kept, divided into two shifts. The parable of the temple was the largest in St. Petersburg, its members received state salaries. In other churches, with rare exceptions, parables lived on money from parochial income.

Members of the royal family were baptized in St. Isaac's Cathedral, and it became the center of citywide holidays. However, the scaffolding was not removed from it for a long time. They said that the building was built in bad faith and required constant repairs. In addition, a legend was born that the house of the Romanovs would fall as soon as the scaffolding was removed from Isaac. They were finally removed only in 1916. Just shortly before Nicholas II abdicated the throne.

St. Isaac's Cathedral is undoubtedly one of the symbols of St. Petersburg. Its tall drum with a dome has been visible since the Gulf of Finland; it has become a noticeable part of the city’s portrait. However, due to the disproportion of the drum and the bells placed next to it, unofficial names arose. One of them is "Inkwell".

After the adoption of a decree in 1920 on the confiscation of church valuables, 50 kilograms of gold and more than two tons of silver, many precious stones, all icons and other valuables were removed from St. Isaac's Cathedral.

For some time the temple remained active. In 1925, the People's Commissariat for Education noted that due to its poor condition it should be closed. The administration of the cathedral could not provide proper care of the building due to the termination of its funding from the state and a significant reduction in the volume of donations. Therefore, in 1928, St. Isaac's Cathedral was transferred to the Main Science. Then the bells were removed from St. Isaac's Cathedral and sent for melting down. At the same time, an elevator shaft was made in the southwestern bell tower.

It was decided to use St. Isaac's Cathedral as a museum. From 1928 to 1931, it underwent cosmetic renovations and prepared an exhibition on the history of the design and construction of the building. By March 1931, this exhibition was supplemented with materials of anti-religious content, after which the St. Isaac's Cathedral Museum was opened.

When the museum opened, all three large front doors of the cathedral were opened for the last time. This was later abandoned, since with the doors open in such a huge building it is impossible to maintain the temperature (16-18 °C) and humidity required to preserve its picturesque decoration.

At the opening ceremony of the museum, the building managed to accommodate 10,000 people, and in just the first three months of operation, more than 100,000 people visited it.

The museum tour consisted of three sections: 1) the history of the cathedral, revealing the hard work of the serf builders; 2) anti-religious work of the museum; 3) natural science section, one of its exhibits was the Foucault pendulum. This pendulum was attached to the dome and descended to the center of the building. Its height was 91 meters.

During Soviet times, St. Isaac's Cathedral continued to be the object of myth-making. One of the pre-war legends says that America was ready to buy the temple. It was supposed to be transported to the USA in parts on ships and reassembled there. For this, the Americans allegedly offered to asphalt all the streets of Leningrad, which at that time were covered with cobblestones.

The second legend tells how during the siege St. Isaac's Cathedral turned out to be unharmed and was not damaged by bombing. When the threat of occupation of Leningrad by the Nazis turned out to be real, the problem of evacuating valuables from the city arose. They didn’t have time to take everything out, so they began to look for a place for a reliable storage of sculpture, furniture, books, porcelain... One elderly officer suggested setting up a storage facility in the basements of St. Isaac’s Cathedral. When shelling the city, the Germans were supposed to use the cathedral dome as a landmark and not shoot at it. And so it happened. During the entire 900 days of the blockade, the museum treasures lay in this storage facility and were never subjected to direct shelling.

But the shells still exploded nearby. The traces of shrapnel that damaged the columns of the western portico of St. Isaac's Cathedral remind us of the Great Patriotic War. At the beginning of the blockade, the dome and bell towers of the building were covered with khaki paint, the windows were covered with bricks, and the chandeliers (weighing 2.9 tons each) were removed.

While the facades of St. Isaac's Cathedral suffered little damage during the war, its interiors suffered great damage. The temple was not heated during the blockade. Because of this, it froze so much that frost appeared on the internal columns. In the spring, when there was a thaw, streams flowed along the walls. Bruni's painting "Adam and Eve in Paradise" suffered the most. Its paint layer was completely washed away, and not a single sketch of the painting was preserved. The restorers had to create it anew, adhering to the artist’s handwriting.

In 1963, St. Isaac's Cathedral was opened after restoration. Before this, the religious funds were transferred to the anti-religious museum (to the Kazan Cathedral). Since then, the museum operating here has a purely historical focus.

St. Isaac's Cathedral houses a bust of Auguste Montferrand, made from 43 types of minerals and stones - all that were used in the construction of the temple.

By 1981, the Foucault pendulum was outdated, since no one needed to prove the rotation of the Earth around its axis. It was not transferred to another organization due to its large size. There was no other building of the required height for the pendulum. He was placed between the doors. The thickness of the walls of St. Isaac's Cathedral together with the cladding is five meters, so the gap between the doors allows you to store some objects between them.

After the removal of the pendulum, the St. Isaac's Cathedral Museum became not just historical, but historical and artistic. This is how he remains to this day. But services are held in the temple again. The colonnade of St. Isaac's Cathedral is one of the most attractive places for tourists. Here from a height of 43 meters you can see the panorama of St. Petersburg. There are 562 steps of a spiral staircase leading to this observation deck.

Thanks a lot! We came with children for the weekend and spent both of them with your guides. Extraordinarily beautiful places and well presented information. The first day we were in Piterhof, the second we visited Pavlovsk and Pushkin - fountains, parks, palaces fascinate and amaze with their beauty and majesty. Many thanks to the guides Tatyana Nikolaevna and Viktor Nikolaevich, as well as the drivers. The buses are clean and comfortable. The next excursions are only with you)))...

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Museum complex "St. Isaac's Cathedral"

The museum is a specific ensemble of temples and cathedrals. We are talking about the Church of the Resurrection of Christ, Smolny and Sampson Cathedrals. All these churches are not only the pride and heritage of the nation, but also active cathedrals, where services for the Orthodox are held daily.

St. Isaac's Cathedral (Russia) - description, history, location. Exact address and website. Tourist reviews, photos and videos.

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St. Isaac's Cathedral is the largest Orthodox church in St. Petersburg today and one of the tallest domed structures in the world. Its history began in 1710, when a wooden church was built in honor of Isaac of Dalmatia, a Byzantine saint whose memorial day coincides with the birthday of Peter the Great. In it, in 1712, Peter married Ekaterina Alekseevna, his second wife. Later the wooden church was replaced with a stone one. The third temple was erected in the second half of the 18th century, but immediately after the completion of the work it was declared inappropriate for the formal development of the city center. Emperor Alexander I announced a competition for the best project for its reconstruction. After 9 years, the project of the young French architect Auguste Montferrand was approved, and work began.

The construction of the cathedral lasted 40 years and required a huge amount of effort. However, the result exceeded all expectations. The monumentality of the cathedral is emphasized by its square construction. 43 types of minerals were used during construction. The base is lined with granite, and the walls are covered with gray marble blocks about 40-50 cm thick. St. Isaac's Cathedral is framed on four sides by mighty eight-column porticoes, decorated with statues and bas-reliefs. Above the bulk of the cathedral rises a grandiose gilded dome on a drum, surrounded by granite columns. The dome itself is made of metal, and about 100 kg of red gold was spent on its gilding.

St. Isaac's Cathedral is sometimes called the Museum of Colored Stone. The interior walls are lined with white marble with finishing panels of green and yellow marble, jasper and porphyry. The main dome was painted from the inside by Karl Bryullov; Vasily Shebuev, Fedora Bruni, Ivan Vitali and many other famous artists and sculptors also worked on the interior decoration of the temple.

The height of the cathedral is 101.5 m; 12,000 people can be in the temple at the same time. However, the architect Montferrand himself believed that the cathedral was designed for 7,000 people, taking into account the fluffy skirts of the ladies, each of whom needed at least 1 square meter. m. of space.

After the revolution, the temple was destroyed, about 45 kg of gold and more than 2 tons of silver were taken out of it. In 1928, services were stopped, and one of the first anti-religious cathedrals in the country opened here. During the Great Patriotic War, the basements of the temple served as a repository for works of art that were brought here from all palaces and museums. For camouflage, the dome was repainted gray, but it was still not possible to avoid the bombing - to this day, traces of artillery shelling are visible on the walls and columns of the temple. They did not shoot at the dome itself; according to legend, the Germans used it as a landmark in the area.

The temple was given museum status in 1948, and church services on Sundays and holidays were resumed in 1990, and this tradition is still alive today. In addition, the cathedral regularly hosts concerts, excursions and other events.

Saint Isaac's Cathedral

Colonnade of St. Isaac's Cathedral

The colonnade of St. Isaac's Cathedral is worth special attention. This is the most famous observation deck in St. Petersburg. From a height of 43 m there are views of the Neva and the central areas of the city. It is especially beautiful here on white nights - there is something mystical in this ghostly light. You can climb the colonnade only on foot using a spiral staircase.

Construction of the colonnade began in 1837, immediately after the dome was erected. The temple was built using technologies from the early 19th century; granite monolithic blocks were delivered from the Gulf of Finland, and a special mechanism was built to lift them to a height. Most construction was carried out manually by serf workers.

Practical information

Address: Isaac's Square, 4.

Opening hours: from 10:00 to 17:30.

Entrance: 250 RUB (entrance to the museum), 150 RUB (entrance to the colonnade, audio tour included).

Prices on the page are as of September 2018.