The Villa San Donato is a Palladian palace built by Russian industrialist Nikolay Demidov on 42 hectares of marshland to the north of Florence at Polverosa which he had bought from the Catholic church, after he was made Russia's ambassador to the court of Tuscany. The first stone was laid on 27 June 1827 and construction was completed in 1831. It includes an estates with rivers, lakes, churches, a menagerie, a silk factory, a zoo, gardens and a railway. The designs were by Giovan Battista Silvestri, architect to the Uffizi.
Besides vast private apartments, it includes a private 14-room museum built to contain the huge Demidov collection. The ceiling of the dome over the central rotonda has a fresco of 1827 by Domenico Morelli, repainted in 1841 by the French painter Jean Baptiste Fortuné de Fournier. It was seriously damaged in the Second World War. The adjacent Demidoff Chapel of San Donato is now owned by the Church of Christ.
Lucca is a city and comune in Tuscany, Central Italy, on the Serchio River, in a fertile plain near the Ligurian Sea. It is the capital of the Province of Lucca. It is famous for its intact Renaissance-era city walls.
Andrea Palladio was an Italian Renaissance architect active in the Venetian Republic. Palladio, influenced by Roman and Greek architecture, primarily Vitruvius, is widely considered to be one of the most influential individuals in the history of architecture. While he designed churches and palaces, he was best known for country houses and villas. His teachings, summarized in the architectural treatise, The Four Books of Architecture, gained him wide recognition.
A rotunda is any building with a circular ground plan, and sometimes covered by a dome. It may also refer to a round room within a building. The Pantheon in Rome is a famous rotunda. A band rotunda is a circular bandstand, usually with a dome.
Villa La Rotonda is a Renaissance villa just outside Vicenza in northern Italy designed by Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio. The villa’s correct name is Villa Almerico Capra Valmarana, but it is also known as "La Rotonda", "Villa Rotonda", "Villa Capra", and "Villa Almerico Capra". The name Capra derives from the Capra brothers, who completed the building after it was ceded to them in 1592. Along with other works by Palladio, the building is conserved as part of the World Heritage Site "City of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto".
I quattro libri dell'architettura is a treatise on architecture by the architect Andrea Palladio (1508–1580), written in Italian. It was first published in four volumes in 1570 in Venice, illustrated with woodcuts after the author's own drawings. It has been reprinted and translated many times, often in single-volume format.
The House of Demidov also Demidoff, was a prominent Russian noble family during the 18th and 19th centuries. Originating in the city of Tula in the 17th century, the Demidovs found success through metal products, and were entered into the European nobility by Peter the Great. Their descendants became among the most influential merchants and earliest industrialists in the Russian Empire, and at their peak were predicted to be the second-richest family in Russia, behind only the Russian Imperial Family. The Demidov family lost its fortune after the February Revolution of 1917, but continues to exist under the rendering Demidoff.
Count Nikolai Nikitich Demidov was a Russian industrialist, collector and arts patron of the Demidov family.
Count Elim Pavlovich Demidov, 3rd Prince of San Donato of the Demidov industrial family, was the Russian Empire's last ambassador to Greece, where he and his wife remained in exile and him as White Russian ambassador.
Fiorano Modenese is a comune (municipality) in the province of Modena in the Italian region Emilia-Romagna, located about 45 kilometres (28 mi) west of Bologna and about 15 kilometres (9 mi) southwest of Modena. Neighboring municipalities are Formigine, Sassuolo, Serramazzoni, Maranello.
The Demidov Prize is a national scientific prize in Russia awarded annually to the members of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Originally awarded from 1832 to 1866 in the Russian Empire, it was revived by the government of Russia's Sverdlovsk Oblast in 1993. In its original incarnation it was one of the first annual scientific awards, and its traditions influenced other awards of this kind including the Nobel Prize.
Count Anatoly Nikolaievich Demidov, 1st Prince of San Donato was a Russian industrialist, diplomat and arts patron of the Demidov family.
Semyon Semyonovich Abamelik-Lazarev, Semen Semenovich Abamelek-Lazarev or Abamelik-Lazaryan was a Russian-Armenian prince, archaeologist and geologist, a member of the Russian Geographical Union, and the honorary supervisor of the Lazarian Seminary in Moscow.
PavelNikolaievich Demidov was a Russian nobleman of the Demidov dynasty.
The Demidov collection was a collection of artworks gathered by the Russian industrialist Count Nikolay Nikitich Demidov and considerably expanded by his second son Anatoly Nikolaievich Demidov, 1st Prince of San Donato. It was mainly on show at their Villa San Donato near Florence, in which a private museum of 14 rooms was devoted to them. It was dispersed at sales in Paris in 1863 on 21 February and 3 March 1870 and at the Villa in March 1880.
Count Pavel Pavlovich Demidov, 2nd Prince of San Donato was a Russian industrialist, jurist, philanthropist and nobleman of the Demidov family.
Prince Arsenije "Arsen" of Yugoslavia was a dynast of the House of Karađorđević and ancestor of the current cadet branch of the Royal Family which ruled Yugoslavia until 1945. He served as an officer in the Russian Army.
The princedom of San Donato was created by Leopold II, Grand Duke of Tuscany, for the Russian Italophile Anatoly Nikolaievich Demidov in 1840, so that Demidov could marry Mathilde Bonaparte, niece of Napoleon, without her losing her title of Princess.
Count AnatolyPavlovich Demidov, 4th Prince of San Donato of the Demidov industrial family, was the last Prince and member of his house. He succeeded his elder half-brother Elim Pavlovich Demidov, 3rd Prince of San Donato in 1943 but died in exile in the same year without male issue.
The Cappella Demidoff di San Donato, or Demidoff Chapel of San Donato, is occupied at present by the Church of Christ in Florence, and is found on via San Donato. The church was formerly the private chapel of the Villa San Donato, built by the rich Russian noble, Anatoly Nikolaievich Demidov, 1st Prince of San Donato. It belonged to the Russian Orthodox Church. The chapel recalls both the Pantheon in Rome, with its central oculus, and the Villa Capra "La Rotonda" in Vicenza by Andrea Palladio. The entrance has a classical portico. The building is in a dilapidated state.
The Monument to Nicola Demidoff or Nikolai Demidov is a 19th-century outdoor sculptural monument located in "Piazza Demidoff" between Lungarno Serristori and Via dei Renai, along the southern bank of the Arno River, in the zone of San Niccolo in the Oltrarno section of the city of Florence, region of Tuscany, Italy.
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