File:The travels of Théophile Gautier (1912) (14592880917).jpg

Identifier: travelsoftheoph04gaut (find matches)
Title: The travels of Théophile Gautier
Year: 1912 (1910s)
Authors: Gautier, Théophile, 1811-1872 Sumichrast, Frederick C. de (Frederick Caesar de), 1845-1933
Subjects: Musée du Louvre. Département des peintures et dessins Painters
Publisher: Boston : Little, Brown and company
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

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ho has proceeded up the Gulf of Finland, nears St. Petersburg, the first object upon which his glance rests is the dome of St. Isaacs, placed upon the skyline of the city like a golden mitre. If the sky is clear and the sunlight strikes the dome, the effect is magnificent.The first impression is the correct one, the one to be remembered. The church of St. Isaacs shines in the very first rank among the religious edifices which adorn the capital of all the Russias. Of modern construction and recently inaugurated, it may be considered a super-human effort of contemporary architecture. Seldom has so short a time elapsed between the laying of the foundation stone and that of the coping stone. An all-powerful will which nothing could resist, not even material obstacles, and which did not hesitate at any sacrifice, is mainly responsible for this miracle of celerity. Begun in 1819 under Alexander I, continued steadily under Nicholas, and completed under Alexander 240 Cathedral of St. Isaacs, St. Petersburg.
Text Appearing After Image:
»ST. ISAACS II, in 1855, St. Isaacs is a complete temple finished internally and externally, of absolute unity of style, bearing its fixed date and its authors name. It is not, like many cathedrals, the slow product of time, a crystallisation of centuries in which each epoch has, as it were, secreted its own stalactite, and which too often the sap of faith, stopped or slowed in its course, has been unable to traverse to the end. The symbolical crane, that surmounts unfinished churches, such as the cathedrals of Cologne and Seville, never figured upon St. Isaacs :uninterrupted labour has brought it in less than forty years to the point of perfection visible today.The aspect of the church recalls St. Peters in Rome, the Pantheon of Agrippa, St. Pauls in London, St.Genevieves in Paris, and the Dome of the Invalides. As the architect, Ricard de Montferrand

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