Vorontsov Palace (Saint Petersburg)

The Vorontsov Palace (Russian: Воронцо́вский дворе́ц, romanized: Vorontsóvskiy dvoréts) is a Baroque palace compound which occupies a large parcel of land located between Sadovaya Street and the Fontanka River in St. Petersburg, Russia.

The palace of 50 rooms was built at enormous expense by Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli for Count Mikhail Illarionovich Vorontsov, Empress Elizabeth's chancellor and maternal relative by marriage. The palace took eight years to build, starting in 1749. After his niece Elizaveta Vorontsova fell from grace, Vorontsov was effectively exiled from the court and sold his main residence to the crown.

Paul I of Russia gave the palace to the Knights Hospitaller, of which he was Grand Master. Another Italian architect working in Russia, Giacomo Quarenghi, was then asked to modernise the palace. In 1798–1800, Quarenghi added a Catholic chapel to serve exiled French aristocrats who resided in the Russian capital at the turn of the 19th century (see Russian tradition of the Knights Hospitaller for details).

Texto adaptado de «Vorontsov Palace (Saint Petersburg)» en la Wikipedia en inglés, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Vorontsov Palace (Saint Petersburg) ranks #1514 of 5793 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #47 of the 126 mapped in Rusia. Compara el dato en las estadísticas de castillos.

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