Petersburg. It is one of the
largest and certainly the richest cathedral in Christendom. All is
polished pink granite and marble and bronze. On all sides are double
rows of Titanic columns, each a single block of polished granite with
bronze capital. Colossal masses of bronze statuary are grouped over each
front; high above the roof and surrounding the great drums of the domes
are lines of giant columns in granite bearing giant statues in bronze;
and crowning all rises the vast central dome, flanked by its four
smaller domes, all heavily plated with gold.
The church within is one gorgeous mass of precious marbles and mosaics
and silver and gold and jewels. On the tabernacle of the altar, in gold
and malachite, on the screen of the altar, with its pilasters of lapis
lazuli and its range of malachite columns fifty feet high, were lavished
millions on millions. Bulging from the ceilings are massy bosses of
Siberian porphyry and jasper. To decorate the walls with unfading
pictures, Nicholas founded an establishment for mosaic work, where sixty
pictures were commanded, each demanding, after all artistic labor, the
mechanical labor of two men for four years.
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