Let's take a closer look at St. Blaise, shown here above its monumental staircase with the scaffold-clad cathedral dome to its left. The 1667 earthquake severely damaged the previous Romanesque structure and a 1706 fire finished the job. The Senate hired a prominent sculptor named Marino Gropelli to model this baroque church on one in his native Venice. (Gropelli was a popular artist and Peter the Great hired him to sculpt some of the Summer Garden statues in St. Petersburg.)
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