page_title: Petrine Baroque
section_title: Domenico Trezzini
hierarchical_section_title: Petrine Baroque / Notable architects / Domenico Trezzini
caption_attribution_description: English: Caption (en/fr): "Panoramic view on Spit of the Vasilievsky Island in St. Petersburg, dedicated by permission to his Imperial Majesty Alexander 1st. by his much obliged humble servant J.A. Atkinson / drawn on the spot by J.A. Atkinson, from the observatory of the Academy of Sciences. 1802-1805. Plate 3rt. Academy of Arts. Colleges. Cronstad. Colleges. Warehouses. Gottorp Globe. Warehouse" Русский: Подпись (англ., фр.): "Панорамный вид стрелки Васильевского острова в С.-Петербурге, выполненный Дж. А. Аткинсоном в период 1802-1805 гг. Лист 3. Академия художеств. Коллегии. Кронштадт. Коллегии. Склады. Готторпский глобус. Склад.".
context_page_description: Petrine Baroque is a style of 17th and 18th century Baroque architecture and decoration favoured by Peter the Great and employed to design buildings in the newly founded Russian capital, Saint Petersburg, under this monarch and his immediate successors.
  Different from contemporary Naryshkin Baroque, favoured in Moscow, the Petrine Baroque represented a dramatic departure from Byzantine traditions that had dominated Russian architecture for almost a millennium. Its chief practitioners - Domenico Trezzini, Andreas Schlüter, and Mikhail Zemtsov - drew inspiration from a rather modest Dutch, Danish, and Swedish architecture of the time.
context_section_description: Domenico Trezzini was born in Italian-speaking region of Switzerland in 1670. The architects that surrounded him in his youth were responsible for the development of the Baroque style in southern Germany. Trezzini's architectural style has visible influences from this German Baroque style along with the northern style of Baroque architecture that he picked up during his time living in Copenhagen. Trezzini was also influenced by the Lombard Baroque style of architecture which was popular in Northern Italy where he grew up during the 17th century. From 1703 until his death in 1734, Trezzini lived in St. Petersburg during the rule of Peter the Great. Trezzini began many of the building projects that formed the basis of the city. Due to the many projects that Trezzini worked on, he was given the title of "Lieutenant-Colonel of Fortification and Architect" in 1710.
  Some of Trezzini's major additions to the city include: Peter the Great's Summer Palace, the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, the Twelve Colleges, and the Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral. Trezzini and his team designed the layout of the developing St. Petersburg including the streets of the anticipated city center of Vasilyevsky Island. The layout of the city was arranged in a grid format with perpendicular streets and canals. Trezzini's design of the city did not follow the European ideal at the time because of its lack of compactness and grid organization rather than the traditional ringed layout.
  In 1714, Peter declared that all houses in St. Petersburg should be constructed after Trezzini's model home. Different versions of the home were created for different classes of citizens based on their rank. Peter classified all citizens into 14 different classes, all of which had different residential areas in Trezzini plan. The size of the citizen's home directly corresponded to their standing in this social ranking. The lower classes were divided by their trades and the upper classes were divided by the amount of serfs that they controlled. Several engravings of the model homes exist and while they are often accredited to Trezzini himself, his assistant Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Le Blond is responsible for creating them. These plans dictated the ornamentation style of the homes and the materials that they would be built with belonging to each class of citizens. In the city center proper, these guidelines were adhered to strictly. The further from the city center, the more flexibility with the design of homes there was. Despite the effort put into maintaining a regulated city design, after Peter's death, the system that Trezzini designed fell to the wayside. Scholars consider Peter I's comprehensive urban design to be one of his greatest legacies.
  In the design of his buildings, the Dutch Baroque style is visible in the types of ornamentation he preferred. For columns, Trezzini preferred squared pilasters as a decorative element and restricted their use to where they were structurally necessary or served a major purpose in the overall design. Trezzini also took inspiration from the work of Christopher Wren, whose work on the St. Paul's Cathedral appears in Trezzini's sketches.
  Trezzini established the St. Petersburg Chancellery of Construction and became its first director. This school was the first institution to offer formal training for architects in Russia. Among those who trained at the Chancellery was Mikhail Zemtsov who continued Trezzini's legacy. Other architects whom Trezzini worked alongside during his life and continued the construction of his buildings after his death were Carlo Giuseppe and Pietro Antonio Trezzini.
caption: The Twelve Colleges, Construction began by Trezzini in 1722
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