Vincenzo Brenna
Encyclopedia
Vincenzo Brenna was an Italian
architect and painter who was the house architect of Paul I of Russia
. Brenna was hired by Paul and his spouse Maria Fyodorovna as interior decorator in 1781 and by the end of 1780s became the couple's leading architect. Brenna worked on Pavlovsk Palace
and Gatchina
palaces, rebuilt Saint Isaac's Cathedral
, and most notably created Saint Michael's Castle
in Saint Petersburg
. Most of his architectural works were created concurrently during Paul's brief reign (November 1796 – March 1801). Soon after Paul was murdered in a palace coup
Brenna, renowned for fraud
and embezzlement
barely tolerated by his late patron, retired and left Russia for an uneventful life in Saxony
.
Brenna never reached the level of his better known contemporaries Giacomo Quarenghi
, Charles Cameron
and Vasily Bazhenov and was soon surpassed by his own trainee Carlo Rossi
. Nevertheless, historians Igor Grabar
, Nikolay Lanceray
and Dmitry Shvidkovsky
praised him for sincere and unrestricted naturalism of his graphic work and considered him to be the watershed between the Age of Enlightenment
and Romanticism
in Russian architecture.
family that had split into two branches, stonemasons (Brenno) and painters (Brenni) not later than the last quarter of the 17th century. Stonemasons and marbling
experts Karl Antonio and Francesco Brenno worked in 1680s in Salzburg
. Karl Enrico Brenno (Brennus) carved elaborate tombs in Denmark
and Hamburg
, but was better known for his marbling artwork at Fredensborg
, Christiansborg
and Klausholm
palaces. Giovanni Battista Brenno, stucco
expert, worked in Bavaria
. The other branch produced three brothers Brenni (born in 1730s), fresco
painters. Vincenzo Brenna, son of Francesco, was born in 1747 in Florence
(19th century sources list him as a native of Rome
, perhaps due to his signature Del cavalier Brenna Romano). It is not clear whether Vincenzo Brenna belonged to Brenno or Brenni branch.
Since 1767 Brenna studied crafts in the Roman workshop of Stefano Pozzi
together with his better known contemporary Giacomo Quarenghi
. Quarenghi, who leaned to painting, converted to architecture under Brenna's influence and later even gave Brenna, who was three years younger than Quarenghi the credit for being "my first teacher in architecture". Brenna himself did not have luck in tangible architecture; instead, commissioned by Lodovico Mirri under auspices of Pope Clement XIII
, he surveyed the relics of Rome together with Franciszek Smuglewicz
. Their drawings, engraved by Marco Carloni, were published in late 1770s as Vestigia delle Terme di Tito. Another set of Brenna's drawings, created not later than 1781 and engraved by Giovanni Cassini, was published in three folios (380 sheets) in 1781-1788. It is not known if Brenna had a chance to meet Charles Cameron
, who also surveyed Rome in 1770s, prior to Brenna's arrival in Russia. Brenna eventually "arrived at a more theatric conception of Antiquity
than the Scot," and created architecture radically different from Cameron's.
Back in Italy Brenna met Stanisław Kostka Potocki, a well-educated and rich amateur in need of professional artists. Brenna followed Potocki to Poland were he prepared two drafts of a church in Ujazdow
. He received commissions to decorate Potocki's palace in Natolin
, for which "compensated" himself from his patron's art collection. The two parted in a bitter conflict; "Brenna's thievery, double-dealing and desertion of his benefactor Potocki for the future czar seem the unkindest cuts of all". According to Lanceray, Brenna also painted fresco
es in Warsaw
for the king Stanisław August Poniatowski.
In the end of 1781 Russian heir apparent
Paul (reigned as Paul I of Russia
) and his spouse Maria, travelling on a Grand Tour
of Europe under the thin guise of Comte du Nord, noticed Brenna's work in Warsaw. Paul, aware that Charles Cameron
needed interior decorators for his Pavlovsk palace, offered Brenna employment in Pavlovsk. Brenna and his assistant Franz Labensky were formally hired by Maria for a starting annual salary of 200 roubles
. Most recent sources (Shvidkovsky) date Brenna's arrival in Russia as the beginning of 1784; Lanceray described Brenna's Russian drafts dated 1783.
Meanwhile, when Paul and Maria were in Europe, Cameron began displaying signs of aversion to their interference with his work. Court intermediaries suppressed the conflict for a while, but by 1785 Maria herself grew tired of Cameron's alleged inefficiency and warned him, through Count Kuchelbecker, that he will not see any new commissions. Cameron's influence faded, influence of his assistants, including Brenna, rose, powered in part by the Italians' assertive, self-confident behaviour. Aspiring Brenna was caught in the middle of "battle of the palaces
", an expensive ideological contest between Catherine and Paul "hidden from the uninitiated but known to the court". Catherine made the first move, razing Bazhenov's gothic towers of Tsaritsyno Palace. Cameron, dismissed by Paul, was the second casualty. Paul suspected him of carrying out Catherine's orders: Cameron built for him "a markedly private world", not an imperial palace. Brenna, already Paul's trusted servant, was an ideal replacement. According to Lanceray, Paul used Brenna for visualizing his architectural fantasies as early as 1783–1785. Maria also favored Brenna; in 1787 she wrote that she was "fascinated by Brenna's return to work" inherited from Cameron.
By 1789 (Shvidkovsky: 1786) Brenna, finally, was awarded his first tangible architectural project, remodeling of Paul's study suite in Pavlovsk. In 1794 Brenna was rewarded with a lot of land near to Pavlovsk palace. Paul's trusted barber Count Ivan Kutaisov, another Pavlovsk landlord, became Brenna's first private customer; he commissioned a summer dacha
in "medieval style". By this time Brenna earned 750 roubles p.a., but when Paul ascended to the throne in 1796, Brenna's salary reached 3,550 roubles.
Gatchina Palace
, completed by Antonio Rinaldi in 1781, became Paul's residence in 1783; formally, it was his property and Pavlovsk became property of Maria Fyodorovna. Paul associated Rinaldi's style with Orlov brothers
, murderers of his fathers
, and immediately launched remodeling of the palace. Paul and Maria's private suites were redesigned in austere styling with inexpensive materials, in contrast with lavishly decorated public halls. Until 1790 Paul lived a quiet life of a landlord, but in the last six years of Catherine's reign (1790–1796) Gatchina became a base for Paul's private militarized party, called Gatchintsy or Ostrogoths.
In 1793 Brenna designed Connetable Square
, modelled after Château de Chantilly
. In 1796 Paul launched construction of a military base for his trusted Gatchina troops; the project, led by Brenna, also employed Bazhenov, Ivan Starov
, Andreyan Zakharov
and Nikolay Lvov
, architect of the Priory Palace
. At about the same time Brenna expanded the palace itself, completing two square side wings of the palace. According to Lanceray's studies of archived architectural drawings, initially Paul instructed Brenna to design these wings as single-story buildings, then two storey, and finally three storey, level with Rinaldi's central core. Archive evidence does not allow reliable attribution of other Gatchina buildings to Brenna; after Paul's ascension he retained overall management over Gatchina project, but spent most time working on Saint Michael's Castle.
Brenna also completed a series of new, at time fantastic
, palace drafts reflecting Paul's visions. Some of these drafts, dated 1783–1785, are direct predecessors of Saint Michael's Castle; according to Lanceray, these early experiments explain the "mind-bogging fast" pace of design stage for the Castle.
Brenna's major additions to Pavlovsk Palace materialized after Paul's ascension to the throne; the architect prepared
drafts over the winter of 1796-1797 and work commenced in spring of 1797. By summer of 1799 Brenna completed expansion of Cameron's modest side wings into spacious private suites for Paul and Maria, and added new wings for their retinue
, nearly completing the circumference
of oval cour d'honneur
. However, the palace retained its open facade appearance and the circumference is evident only in plans or aerial photographs. Pavlovsk interiors retained, to a varying degree, signs of Cameron's style and cannot be reliably attributed to a particular architect, with the exception of empress Maria's suite unconditionally attributed to Brenna and Andrey Voronikhin
's repairs after the 1803 fire.
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
architect and painter who was the house architect of Paul I of Russia
Paul I of Russia
Paul I was the Emperor of Russia between 1796 and 1801. He also was the 72nd Prince and Grand Master of the Order of Malta .-Childhood:...
. Brenna was hired by Paul and his spouse Maria Fyodorovna as interior decorator in 1781 and by the end of 1780s became the couple's leading architect. Brenna worked on Pavlovsk Palace
Pavlovsk Palace
Pavlovsk Palace is an 18th-century Russian Imperial residence built by Paul I of Russia near Saint Petersburg. After his death, it became the home of his widow, Maria Feodorovna...
and Gatchina
Gatchina
Gatchina is a town and the administrative center of Gatchinsky District of Leningrad Oblast, Russia, located south of St. Petersburg by the road leading to Pskov...
palaces, rebuilt Saint Isaac's Cathedral
Saint Isaac's Cathedral
Saint Isaac's Cathedral or Isaakievskiy Sobor in Saint Petersburg, Russia is the largest Russian Orthodox cathedral in the city...
, and most notably created Saint Michael's Castle
Saint Michael's Castle
St. Michael's Castle , also called the Mikhailovsky Castle or the Engineers Castle , is a former royal residence in the historic centre of Saint Petersburg, Russia. St. Michael's Castle was built as a residence for Emperor Paul I by architects Vincenzo Brenna and Vasili Bazhenov in 1797-1801...
in Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
. Most of his architectural works were created concurrently during Paul's brief reign (November 1796 – March 1801). Soon after Paul was murdered in a palace coup
Coup d'état
A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...
Brenna, renowned for fraud
Fraud
In criminal law, a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual; the related adjective is fraudulent. The specific legal definition varies by legal jurisdiction. Fraud is a crime, and also a civil law violation...
and embezzlement
Embezzlement
Embezzlement is the act of dishonestly appropriating or secreting assets by one or more individuals to whom such assets have been entrusted....
barely tolerated by his late patron, retired and left Russia for an uneventful life in Saxony
Saxony
The Free State of Saxony is a landlocked state of Germany, contingent with Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with of Germany's sixteen states....
.
Brenna never reached the level of his better known contemporaries Giacomo Quarenghi
Giacomo Quarenghi
Giacomo Quarenghi was the foremost and most prolific practitioner of Palladian architecture in Imperial Russia, particularly in Saint Petersburg.- Career in Italy :...
, Charles Cameron
Charles Cameron (architect)
Charles Cameron was a Scottish architect who made an illustrious career at the court of Catherine II of Russia. Cameron, practitioner of early neoclassical architecture, was the chief architect of Tsarskoye Selo and Pavlovsk palaces and the adjacent new town of Sophia from his arrival in Russia in...
and Vasily Bazhenov and was soon surpassed by his own trainee Carlo Rossi
Carlo Rossi (architect)
Carlo di Giovanni Rossi, was an Italian architect, who worked the major portion of his life in Russia. He was the author of many classical buildings and architectural ensembles in Saint Petersburg and its environments...
. Nevertheless, historians Igor Grabar
Igor Grabar
Igor Emmanuilovich Grabar was a Russian post-impressionist painter, publisher, restorer and historian of art. Grabar, descendant of a wealthy Rusyn family, was trained as a painter by Ilya Repin in Saint Petersburg and by Anton Ažbe in Munich...
, Nikolay Lanceray
Nikolay Lanceray
Nikolay Lanceray was a Russian architect, preservationist, illustrator of books and historian of neoclassical art, biographer of Charles Cameron, Vincenzo Brenna and Andreyan Zakharov...
and Dmitry Shvidkovsky
Dmitry Shvidkovsky
Dmitry Shvidkovsky is a Russian educator and historian of architecture of Russia and the United Kingdom during the Age of Enlightenment. A 1982 alumnus and long-term professor of Moscow Architectural Institute, Shvidkovsky was appointed its rector in 2007....
praised him for sincere and unrestricted naturalism of his graphic work and considered him to be the watershed between the Age of Enlightenment
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
and Romanticism
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
in Russian architecture.
Family roots and training
Brenna belonged to an old TicinoTicino
Canton Ticino or Ticino is the southernmost canton of Switzerland. Named after the Ticino river, it is the only canton in which Italian is the sole official language...
family that had split into two branches, stonemasons (Brenno) and painters (Brenni) not later than the last quarter of the 17th century. Stonemasons and marbling
Marble
Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite.Geologists use the term "marble" to refer to metamorphosed limestone; however stonemasons use the term more broadly to encompass unmetamorphosed limestone.Marble is commonly used for...
experts Karl Antonio and Francesco Brenno worked in 1680s in Salzburg
Salzburg
-Population development:In 1935, the population significantly increased when Salzburg absorbed adjacent municipalities. After World War II, numerous refugees found a new home in the city. New residential space was created for American soldiers of the postwar Occupation, and could be used for...
. Karl Enrico Brenno (Brennus) carved elaborate tombs in Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
and Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
, but was better known for his marbling artwork at Fredensborg
Fredensborg Palace
Fredensborg Palace, , is a palace located on the eastern shore of Lake Esrum in Fredensborg on the island of Zealand in Denmark. It is the Danish Royal Family’s spring and autumn residence, and is often the site of important state visits and events in the Royal Family...
, Christiansborg
Christiansborg Palace
Christiansborg Palace, , on the islet of Slotsholmen in central Copenhagen, is the seat of the Folketing , the Danish Prime Minister's Office and the Danish Supreme Court...
and Klausholm
Randers
Randers is a city in Randers municipality on the Jutland peninsula in central Denmark. It is Denmark's sixth-largest city, with a population of 60,656 . Randers city is the main town of the municipality and the site of its municipal council.-Overview:Randers municipality has 94,750 inhabitants...
palaces. Giovanni Battista Brenno, stucco
Stucco
Stucco or render is a material made of an aggregate, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as decorative coating for walls and ceilings and as a sculptural and artistic material in architecture...
expert, worked in Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
. The other branch produced three brothers Brenni (born in 1730s), fresco
Fresco
Fresco is any of several related mural painting types, executed on plaster on walls or ceilings. The word fresco comes from the Greek word affresca which derives from the Latin word for "fresh". Frescoes first developed in the ancient world and continued to be popular through the Renaissance...
painters. Vincenzo Brenna, son of Francesco, was born in 1747 in Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
(19th century sources list him as a native of Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
, perhaps due to his signature Del cavalier Brenna Romano). It is not clear whether Vincenzo Brenna belonged to Brenno or Brenni branch.
Since 1767 Brenna studied crafts in the Roman workshop of Stefano Pozzi
Stefano Pozzi
Stefano Pozzi was an Italian painter, designer, draughtsman and decorator whose career was spent largely in Rome....
together with his better known contemporary Giacomo Quarenghi
Giacomo Quarenghi
Giacomo Quarenghi was the foremost and most prolific practitioner of Palladian architecture in Imperial Russia, particularly in Saint Petersburg.- Career in Italy :...
. Quarenghi, who leaned to painting, converted to architecture under Brenna's influence and later even gave Brenna, who was three years younger than Quarenghi the credit for being "my first teacher in architecture". Brenna himself did not have luck in tangible architecture; instead, commissioned by Lodovico Mirri under auspices of Pope Clement XIII
Pope Clement XIII
Pope Clement XIII , born Carlo della Torre di Rezzonico, was Pope from 16 July 1758 to 2 February 1769....
, he surveyed the relics of Rome together with Franciszek Smuglewicz
Franciszek Smuglewicz
Franciszek Smuglewicz or Pranciškus Smuglevičius, October 6, 1745 – September 18, 1807) was a Polish-Lithuanian draughtsman and painter. Smuglewicz is considered a progenitor of Lithuanian art in the modern era. Some consider him as a spiritual father of Jan Matejko's school of painting....
. Their drawings, engraved by Marco Carloni, were published in late 1770s as Vestigia delle Terme di Tito. Another set of Brenna's drawings, created not later than 1781 and engraved by Giovanni Cassini, was published in three folios (380 sheets) in 1781-1788. It is not known if Brenna had a chance to meet Charles Cameron
Charles Cameron (architect)
Charles Cameron was a Scottish architect who made an illustrious career at the court of Catherine II of Russia. Cameron, practitioner of early neoclassical architecture, was the chief architect of Tsarskoye Selo and Pavlovsk palaces and the adjacent new town of Sophia from his arrival in Russia in...
, who also surveyed Rome in 1770s, prior to Brenna's arrival in Russia. Brenna eventually "arrived at a more theatric conception of Antiquity
Ancient history
Ancient history is the study of the written past from the beginning of recorded human history to the Early Middle Ages. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, with Cuneiform script, the oldest discovered form of coherent writing, from the protoliterate period around the 30th century BC...
than the Scot," and created architecture radically different from Cameron's.
From Poland to Russia
Ujazdów
Ujazdów may refer to the following places in Poland:*Ujazdów Castle in Warsaw*Ujazdów Park in Warsaw*Ujazdów, Włodawa County in Lublin Voivodeship *Ujazdów, Zamość County in Lublin Voivodeship...
. He received commissions to decorate Potocki's palace in Natolin
Natolin
Natolin is a historic park and nature reserve on the southern edge of Warsaw, Poland. "Natolin" is also the name of a neighborhood located to the west of the park — a part of Warsaw's southernmost Ursynów district....
, for which "compensated" himself from his patron's art collection. The two parted in a bitter conflict; "Brenna's thievery, double-dealing and desertion of his benefactor Potocki for the future czar seem the unkindest cuts of all". According to Lanceray, Brenna also painted fresco
Fresco
Fresco is any of several related mural painting types, executed on plaster on walls or ceilings. The word fresco comes from the Greek word affresca which derives from the Latin word for "fresh". Frescoes first developed in the ancient world and continued to be popular through the Renaissance...
es in Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
for the king Stanisław August Poniatowski.
In the end of 1781 Russian heir apparent
Heir apparent
An heir apparent or heiress apparent is a person who is first in line of succession and cannot be displaced from inheriting, except by a change in the rules of succession....
Paul (reigned as Paul I of Russia
Paul I of Russia
Paul I was the Emperor of Russia between 1796 and 1801. He also was the 72nd Prince and Grand Master of the Order of Malta .-Childhood:...
) and his spouse Maria, travelling on a Grand Tour
Grand Tour
The Grand Tour was the traditional trip of Europe undertaken by mainly upper-class European young men of means. The custom flourished from about 1660 until the advent of large-scale rail transit in the 1840s, and was associated with a standard itinerary. It served as an educational rite of passage...
of Europe under the thin guise of Comte du Nord, noticed Brenna's work in Warsaw. Paul, aware that Charles Cameron
Charles Cameron (architect)
Charles Cameron was a Scottish architect who made an illustrious career at the court of Catherine II of Russia. Cameron, practitioner of early neoclassical architecture, was the chief architect of Tsarskoye Selo and Pavlovsk palaces and the adjacent new town of Sophia from his arrival in Russia in...
needed interior decorators for his Pavlovsk palace, offered Brenna employment in Pavlovsk. Brenna and his assistant Franz Labensky were formally hired by Maria for a starting annual salary of 200 roubles
Russian ruble
The ruble or rouble is the currency of the Russian Federation and the two partially recognized republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Formerly, the ruble was also the currency of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union prior to their breakups. Belarus and Transnistria also use currencies with...
. Most recent sources (Shvidkovsky) date Brenna's arrival in Russia as the beginning of 1784; Lanceray described Brenna's Russian drafts dated 1783.
Meanwhile, when Paul and Maria were in Europe, Cameron began displaying signs of aversion to their interference with his work. Court intermediaries suppressed the conflict for a while, but by 1785 Maria herself grew tired of Cameron's alleged inefficiency and warned him, through Count Kuchelbecker, that he will not see any new commissions. Cameron's influence faded, influence of his assistants, including Brenna, rose, powered in part by the Italians' assertive, self-confident behaviour. Aspiring Brenna was caught in the middle of "battle of the palaces
Battle of the palaces
The "battle of the palaces" occurred in the Russian Empire in the last decade of the reign of Catherine II and the reign of Paul I , with ripple effects extending into the beginning of the reign of Alexander I...
", an expensive ideological contest between Catherine and Paul "hidden from the uninitiated but known to the court". Catherine made the first move, razing Bazhenov's gothic towers of Tsaritsyno Palace. Cameron, dismissed by Paul, was the second casualty. Paul suspected him of carrying out Catherine's orders: Cameron built for him "a markedly private world", not an imperial palace. Brenna, already Paul's trusted servant, was an ideal replacement. According to Lanceray, Paul used Brenna for visualizing his architectural fantasies as early as 1783–1785. Maria also favored Brenna; in 1787 she wrote that she was "fascinated by Brenna's return to work" inherited from Cameron.
By 1789 (Shvidkovsky: 1786) Brenna, finally, was awarded his first tangible architectural project, remodeling of Paul's study suite in Pavlovsk. In 1794 Brenna was rewarded with a lot of land near to Pavlovsk palace. Paul's trusted barber Count Ivan Kutaisov, another Pavlovsk landlord, became Brenna's first private customer; he commissioned a summer dacha
Dacha
Dacha is a Russian word for seasonal or year-round second homes often located in the exurbs of Soviet and post-Soviet cities. Cottages or shacks serving as family's main or only home are not considered dachas, although many purpose-built dachas are recently being converted for year-round residence...
in "medieval style". By this time Brenna earned 750 roubles p.a., but when Paul ascended to the throne in 1796, Brenna's salary reached 3,550 roubles.
Gatchina
Gatchina Palace
Gatchina Palace
The Great Gatchina Palace was built in 1766–1781 in Gatchina town by Antonio Rinaldi for Count Grigori Grigoryevich Orlov who was a favourite of Ekaterina II. The Gatchina Palace is located on the hill above Lake Serebryannoe. It combines themes of a medieval castle and a country residence....
, completed by Antonio Rinaldi in 1781, became Paul's residence in 1783; formally, it was his property and Pavlovsk became property of Maria Fyodorovna. Paul associated Rinaldi's style with Orlov brothers
Orlov
Orlov is the name of a Russian noble family which produced several distinguished statesmen, diplomatists and soldiers. The family first gained distinction in the person of four Orlov brothers, of whom the senior was Catherine the Great's paramour, and the two junior were notable military...
, murderers of his fathers
Peter III of Russia
Peter III was Emperor of Russia for six months in 1762. He was very pro-Prussian, which made him an unpopular leader. He was supposedly assassinated as a result of a conspiracy led by his wife, who succeeded him to the throne as Catherine II.-Early life and character:Peter was born in Kiel, in...
, and immediately launched remodeling of the palace. Paul and Maria's private suites were redesigned in austere styling with inexpensive materials, in contrast with lavishly decorated public halls. Until 1790 Paul lived a quiet life of a landlord, but in the last six years of Catherine's reign (1790–1796) Gatchina became a base for Paul's private militarized party, called Gatchintsy or Ostrogoths.
In 1793 Brenna designed Connetable Square
Connetable (Gatchina)
Connetable — obelisk and square in Gatchina, placed on the cross of 25th of October prospect and Krasnoarmeysky prospect. Probably the author of the project was Vincenzo Brenna....
, modelled after Château de Chantilly
Château de Chantilly
The Château de Chantilly is a historic château located in the town of Chantilly, France. It comprises two attached buildings; the Grand Château, destroyed during the French Revolution and rebuilt in the 1870s, and the Petit Château which was built around 1560 for Anne de Montmorency...
. In 1796 Paul launched construction of a military base for his trusted Gatchina troops; the project, led by Brenna, also employed Bazhenov, Ivan Starov
Ivan Starov
Ivan Yegorovich Starov was a Russian architect from St. Petersburg who devised the master plans for Yaroslavl, Voronezh, Pskov, Dnipropetrovsk, Mykolaiv, and many other towns in Russia and Ukraine...
, Andreyan Zakharov
Andreyan Zakharov
Andreyan Zakharov was a Russian architect and representative of the Empire style. His designs also alternated neoclassicism with eclecticism. He was born to a family that was employed by the Admiralty board, and his greatest work was his renovation and expansion of the Admiralty building...
and Nikolay Lvov
Nikolay Lvov
Nikolay Aleksandrovich Lvov was a Russian artist of the Age of Enlightenment. Lvov, an amateur of Rurikid lineage, was a polymath who contributed to geology, history, graphic arts and poetry, but is known primarily as an architect and ethnographer, compiler of the first significant collection of...
, architect of the Priory Palace
Priory Palace
Priory Palace is an original palace in Gatchina , Russia. It was built in 1799 by the architect N. A. Lvov on the shore of the Black Lake ...
. At about the same time Brenna expanded the palace itself, completing two square side wings of the palace. According to Lanceray's studies of archived architectural drawings, initially Paul instructed Brenna to design these wings as single-story buildings, then two storey, and finally three storey, level with Rinaldi's central core. Archive evidence does not allow reliable attribution of other Gatchina buildings to Brenna; after Paul's ascension he retained overall management over Gatchina project, but spent most time working on Saint Michael's Castle.
Brenna also completed a series of new, at time fantastic
Capriccio (painting)
In painting, a capriccio , means especially an architectural fantasy, placing together buildings, archaeological remains and other architectural elements in fictional and often fantastical combinations, perhaps with staffage of figures. It fits under the more general term of landscape painting...
, palace drafts reflecting Paul's visions. Some of these drafts, dated 1783–1785, are direct predecessors of Saint Michael's Castle; according to Lanceray, these early experiments explain the "mind-bogging fast" pace of design stage for the Castle.
Pavlovsk
drafts over the winter of 1796-1797 and work commenced in spring of 1797. By summer of 1799 Brenna completed expansion of Cameron's modest side wings into spacious private suites for Paul and Maria, and added new wings for their retinue
Retinue
A retinue is a body of persons "retained" in the service of a noble or royal personage, a suite of "retainers".-Etymology:...
, nearly completing the circumference
Circumference
The circumference is the distance around a closed curve. Circumference is a special perimeter.-Circumference of a circle:The circumference of a circle is the length around it....
of oval cour d'honneur
Cour d'Honneur
Cour d'Honneur is the architectural term for defining a three-sided courtyard, created when the main central block, or corps de logis, is flanked by symmetrical advancing secondary wings, containing minor rooms...
. However, the palace retained its open facade appearance and the circumference is evident only in plans or aerial photographs. Pavlovsk interiors retained, to a varying degree, signs of Cameron's style and cannot be reliably attributed to a particular architect, with the exception of empress Maria's suite unconditionally attributed to Brenna and Andrey Voronikhin
Andrey Voronikhin
Andrey Nikiforovich Voronikhin was a Russian architect and painter. As a representative of classicism he was also one of the founders of the monumental Russian Empire style...
's repairs after the 1803 fire.