Home – Home – Jornals – Humanitarian sciences in Siberia 2022 number

The article discusses the issue of the building program by Ivan III and its place in the art history. To do this the author correlates Ivan’s personality and the list of his architectural works. The issue is studied not in frames of archaeology, but in terms of anthropology, that requires the typological approach application. The author relies on published architectural and religious materials to identify the types-symbols inherent in the Grand Duke’s building activities. Firstly, the paper studies the character and objects of private patronage of such XV century European rulers as bishop of Rome Nicholas V, Cosimo de’ Medici, Francesca Sforza, Jan Zamoyski and others. Many of them needed the state representation effective forms. Therefore, the arts patronage developed more actively during the Renaissance. Then the author turns directly to the activities of Ivan III; notes both possible borrowings and explicit recycling samples of building programs. For example, Ivan III was the patron of architects, who were parts of the New Professionalism in the Renaissance. The Russian ruler invited such architects as Aristotle Fioravanti, Aloisio the Old, Aloisio the New, Antonio Gislardi, Marco Ruffo and Pietro Antonio Solari. They were all representatives of a Renaissance type architect of the post-classical history. The fact of these Italians invitation brought the author to the dilemma of the Grand Duke’s religious and secular character. It was impossible to bypass it as Ivan III was very different from the patrons mentioned above. First of all, he was far from the Renaissance humanism. The paper concludes that Ivan’s building program has a number of unique features: its first half is medieval in style, but by design repeats the new modern trend to represent spectacularly the new power; all architectural objects are full of religious meaning, but, at the same time, it is a common case of typically secular ambitions of the ruler. Sophia Palaiologina and her entourage reinforced the influence of features of the post-classical history in her husband’s program. Therefore, the author considers that only the program’s second half should be regarded equal to its European counterparts. The five symbolic families (“Respect to the memory, deeds and glory of ancestors”, “Honor to the patron Saint”, “Vow and thanksgiving to God”, “Moscow is the third Rome”, “Care for the afterlife”) are the base of the building program typology. Thirty-nine architectural works are compiled at the summary table.