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ASSUMPTION CATHEDRAL
1475
This was not only the main cathedral church, but also the most important public building in the Russian state. It dominates all the other buildings in the square and is the architectural focal point of the whole ensemble.
The history of the Assumption Cathedral goes back many a century. In very early times this spot was probably the religious centre of Moscow with a cemetery and a wooden church. The town's first stone church was erected here at the end of the thirteenth century. In 1326 Metropolitan Peter, who transferred his residence from Vladimir to Moscow, and Grand Prince Ivan the Moneybag founded the first Assumption Cathedral to be mentioned in the chronicles. The metropolitan was buried in this cathedral. And after his successor Metropolitan Theog-nostos was buried next to him, the Assumption Cathedral became the burial church of the metropolitans and patriarchs.
Assumption Cathedral
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By the end of the fifteenth century the ^cathedral was badly in need of repair. Moreover in size and ornament this old building was no longer fitted to be the capital's main cathedral. Special significance was attached to the building of a new main cathedral in Russia. The Assumption Cathedral in Vladimir, the symbol of grand-princely power, was taken as a model. The new cathedral was erected by Aristotele Fioravanti, an experienced engineer and architect from Bologna.
The Italian master began work in 1475. He laid the foundations very deep down on oak piles. Beyond the Andronicus Monastery on the bank of the River Moskva some brickworks were built which produced extremely strong bricks in a new shape. A very firm mortar not known before was used to lay the bricks. Specially prepared material was used as rubble instead of the usual broken brick and small stone. The actual building was erected on the basis of precise calculations using various devices and instruments. Muscovites were taken aback by all these innovations, but soon accepted them.
Over the months from spring to autumn 1476 the Assumption Cathedral was built up to the band of blind arcading, and in the next building season it was completed for the most part. Another two years were spent on decorating the interior and erecting the domes. On 12 August, 1479 the cathedral was consecrated by the Metropolitan in the presence of Grand Prince Ivan III. Fioravanti did indeed use many features of Vladimir architecture in the new building. But the overall treatment of the Moscow Assumption Cathedral differs considerably from that of the Vladimir one. The new cathedral was the main church not of a single principality, but of the united Russian state.
Fioravanti naturally took account in his work of local traditions, namely, five domes, a roof that followed the lines of the interior vaulting, the division of the walls by pilasters, the band of blind arcading and the deeply recessed portal. But brought up as he was on the art of the Renaissance the architect introduced a strict order into the building, coordination of the various parts and precisely calculated proportions, making use of the so-called golden section. He created an edifice that was different from its prototype. His cathedral does not grow out of the hill or merge into surrounding landscape. It rests on a flat horizontal square. Instead of massive cylindrical stone vaults the cathedral has light cross vaulting only one brick in thickness. Thanks to this the interior pillars were round "like trees". The geometrical division of the units and facades, the equal measurements of the vaulted gables (za-komaryl, the five (instead of three) apses of the sanctuary which protrude only very slightly from the wall, were all new to Muscovites of that day.
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