Painterly decoration’s design of the Petersburg Saint Peter and Paul Cathedral in the context of Dominico Trezzini’s faith

Abstract

The article is devoted to analysis of the design of painterly decoration in the Petersburg Saint Peter
and Paul Cathedral in the context of Dominico Trezzini’s religious ideology and his confessional
status. On the basis of original registers of the pictorial subjects, intended to be placed on the walls
underneath the vaults and in the rotunda underneath the dome of the Cathedral, the author examines
the iconographic program of the church painting. These registers were compiled by Trezzini in 1728.
In the light of the differences of Catholic and Orthodox eortology this article found that the program
of the Christ’s Passions underneath the vaults originally contained a Catholic interpretation of the
Holy Week. The choice of the painting’s subjects corresponded to the Roman tradition to represent
the Way of the Cross in the churches and comported with the Roman Church Liturgy Via Crucis.
At the same time Trezzini did not repeat the classic Franciscan scheme of Fourteen Stations of the
Cross. The design of painterly decoration in the dome demonstrates the Catholic accent in the theme
of the Christ’s Victory over death owing to the painting “The Assumption of the Virgin”, which was
conceived not as a Dormition but as bodily Ascension of the Virgin Mary. The author concludes that
Trezzini was one of the main conductors of Roman Catholic West’s spiritual and aesthetic influence
on the Russian art in the 18-th century.