Antonio Rinaldi

Italian architect, trained under Vanvitelli. Called to Russia by Kirill Grigoryevich Razumovsky (1728–1803), he designed a palace at Baturin, Ukraine (1752–3), and from 1755 was in St Petersburg. From 1756 he was involved in the design of the palace complex and park at Oranienbaum (now Lomonossow), where his first building, the small stone palace (1758–60) was decorated in a Rococo style. He also designed Catherine II's dacha and the Chinese Palace (1762–8— with exquisite Rococo and Chinoiserie internal decorations). From 1766 he worked on the Gatchina Palace for Count Grigory Grigoryevich Orlov (1734–83), completed 1781—it was influenced by Palladianism and Neo-Classical taste. His masterpiece is reckoned to be the Marble Palace, St Petersburg (1768–85), with an exterior partly Baroque and partly Neo-Classical: it is also significant in that it appears to be one of the first major palatial buildings with cast-iron beams, and shows traces of the influence of Juvarra.

Bibliography

• Cruickshank (ed.) (1996)
• G.Hamilton (1983)
• Jane Turner (1996)

The full bibliography for this book is available to download as a pdf file.
Download the bibliography for A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (PDF: 1.2MB)