Building the New Rome: Charles Cameron as the Architect of Catherine the Great's New Eternal City
Journal: ScholarsArchive  (Brigham Young University)
Year: 2012

Catherine the Great, The Empress of Russia, considered herself to be an enlightened ruler. Like many enlightened minds of the eighteenth century, she was fascinated with classical antiquity, especially with ancient Rome. In 1779, she invited a Scottish architect named Charles Cameron to complete a series of building projects for her that would create a "second Rome" in Tsarskoye Selo and in Pavlovsk, Russia. Cameron, an expert on classical antiquity because of his studies of the Roman ruins and