Marble Bridge, Podkaprizovaya Road, Saint Petersburg, Russia, 196603
The Marble Bridge was built in 1774 in the Landscape Section of the Catherine Park. The bridge stands over a channel connecting the Large Pond with the Swan Ponds, which are still called that to this day because swans lived on them. Seven islands were specially created for the swans, and on these islands, houses were built and painted according to the designs of A. Rinaldi. The bridge has three names – Marble, Palladian, and Siberian Marble Gallery. The bridge is placed over a narrow channel connecting the Large Pond with the neighboring pond, on which an archipelago of 7 islands was created. Swans lived on these islands in houses painted according to Rinaldi’s designs. These islands still retain the name Swan Islands to this day.
The Marble Bridge is a colonnade set on a granite base, with staircases spreading out on the sides. On the sides of the large and gentle central arch are smaller semicircular arches. The upper part of the bridge is formed by two square pavilions placed above the arched spans. The pavilions are connected by a colonnade of light and slender Ionic columns. The spaces between their pedestals are decorated with balustrades made of shaped balusters.
The model for the Marble Bridge, constructed following Neelov’s design, was inspired by bridges in the English parks of Stowe and Wilton, created based on Palladio’s project.
In the early 1770s, at the Yekaterinburg Faceting Factory, Ural stone carvers under the guidance of master V. Tortori carved columns, capitals, pedestals, balusters, and other details from local bluish-gray Gornoshchitsky and white Stanovoy marbles according to the presented model. Panels for cladding the bridge’s abutments were made from grayish-pink granite.
The construction of the Marble Bridge’s foundations dates back to 1773; in 1774, the bridge was assembled from ready-made parts in Tsarskoye Selo by master Tortori and his assistants.
Sources:
https://www.tzar.ru/objects/ekaterininskypark/landscape/marblebridge
https://pushkin.spb.ru/encycl/parks/mramornyiy-palladiev-most.html
