Antonio Rinaldi (architect)

Antonio Rinaldi (Palermo, 25 August 1709 – Rome, 10 April 1794) was an Italian architect, trained by Luigi Vanvitelli, who worked mainly in Russia.

To this early period belong the Resurrection cathedral in Pochep near Bryansk and the Catherine Cathedral in Yamburg, now Kingisepp near St Petersburg (illustrated, right), where Rinaldi successfully expressed the domed, centrally-planned form required by traditional Russian Orthodox practice in a confident Italian Late Baroque vocabulary.

In 1754, he was appointed chief architect of the young court, i.e., the future Peter III and Catherine II, who resided at Oranienbaum.

In the 1770s, Rinaldi served as the main architect of Count Orlov, who was Catherine's prime favourite and the most powerful man in the country.

Rinaldi's last works represent a continuous transition from the dazzling rococo of interiors to the reserved and clear-cut treatment of facades characteristic of Neoclassicism.