Biography
Bartolomeo went to Russia in 1715 with his father, Italian sculptor Carlo Bartolomeo Rastrelli (1675–1744). His ambition was to combine the latest Italian architectural fashion with traditions of the Muscovite baroque style. The first important commission came in 1721 when he was asked to build a palace for Prince Demetre Cantemir, former ruler of Moldavia.
He was appointed to the post of senior court architect in 1730. His works found favour with female monarchs of his time, so he retained this post throughout the reigns of Empresses Anna (1730–1740) and Elizabeth (1741–1762).
Rastrelli's last and most ambitious project was the Smolny Convent in St. Petersburg where Empress Elizabeth was to spend the rest of her life. The projected bell-tower was to become the tallest building in St Petersburg and all of Russia. Elizabeth's death in 1762 prevented Rastrelli from completing this grand design.
The new empress, Catherine II, dismissed baroque architecture as an old-fashioned "whipped cream", and the aged architect had to retire to Courland where he supervised the completion and decoration of the ducal palaces.
His last years were spent in obscure commerce with Italian art-dealers. He was elected to the Imperial Academy of Arts several months before his death. A square in front of the Smolny Convent has borne Rastrelli's name since 1923.
Read more about this topic: Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli
Famous quotes containing the word biography:
“Just how difficult it is to write biography can be reckoned by anybody who sits down and considers just how many people know the real truth about his or her love affairs.”
—Rebecca West [Cicily Isabel Fairfield] (1892–1983)
“As we approached the log house,... the projecting ends of the logs lapping over each other irregularly several feet at the corners gave it a very rich and picturesque look, far removed from the meanness of weather-boards. It was a very spacious, low building, about eighty feet long, with many large apartments ... a style of architecture not described by Vitruvius, I suspect, though possibly hinted at in the biography of Orpheus.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“There never was a good biography of a good novelist. There couldn’t be. He is too many people, if he’s any good.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)