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Kunstkammer
The Kunstkammer, or Chamber of Curiosities, by Georg
Johann Mattarnovy, 1718-34; completed by Gaetano Chiaveri
and Mikhail Zemtsov (the first official Russian "arkhitektor").
Commissioned by Peter the Great, the Kunstkammer housed
Russia's first public museum (of misc. "curiosities"
of science, nature, and culture), a library, an anatomy
dissecting theater under the dome, and Russia's first
observatory in the original dome (altered after a fire
in the eighteenth century). Today, in addition to displaying
a part of Peter's Collection of Curiosities (some of
them grotesque), the Kunstkammer houses the Museum of
Anthropology and Ethnography of the Peoples of the World. |
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