Menshikov Palace
Menshikov Palace, 1710–16, by Gottfried Schaedel and Giovanni Fontana. The original central core of the building was expanded to the sides in the mid-eighteenth century to accommodate the military cadet school. The walls of the main staircase and entrance hall. are decorated in scagliola, a technique that uses gypsum, sand, clay, and glue that, when hardened and polished, imitates marble. Known in ancient Egypt, the process was rediscovered in Italy in the sixteenth century and introduced into St. Petersburg by West European artisans. Scagliola surfaces-cheaper to install than real marble but elegant in their own right-may be seen in countless St. Petersburg buildings of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries including the Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul and the Winter Palace.