On the Temple Building in the Town of Staritsa in the 17th Century

Abstract

Throughout centuries, the abundance of white stone (limestone) in the Town of Staritsa and its surroundings made this city a supplier of this building material to various lands of Russia. Staritsa fully used these natural resources in the Middle Ages, when it was the second most important city of the Principality of Tver, and then an important center in the structure of the Moscow state. As a result, at the end of the 14th - 16th centuries, there were built several stone temples with a level of artistic value allowing to place them in line with the best creations by the architects of Ancient Russia.

After the Time of Troubles at the beginning of the 17th century, the construction of stone buildings in Staritsa was suspended for a long time. It later continued but was conducted only in two monasteries, since at that period the Staritsky Kremlin was a gradually emptying territory with a rundown and rapidly collapsing fortress. The earliest stone construction of the 17th century was the Cathedral of Voznesensky (Ascension) Monastery. Created in the middle of the century, with possible involvement of the royal family, this temple was apparently stylistically close to the Moscow cult buildings of the first half - the middle of the 17th century with their rich facade patterns.

The fire of 1681, having destroyed a significant part of another monastery of Staritsa - Uspensky (Assumption) Monastery, contributed to the fact that in the 80s - 90s of the 17th century there were built several stone buildings, a new cathedral bell tower, and the gate church of John the Theologian. Its volume-spatial composition "octagon on quadrangle" became the personification of those innovative architectural processes that contributed to the emergence of a new temple type in Russia.