Cathedral of the Archangel

Standing on Cathedral Square inside the Moscow Kremlin, this early sixteenth-century church served as the burial place of Muscovite grand princes and tsars before Peter the Great moved the imperial necropolis to Saint Petersburg. An Italian architect gave its Orthodox form Renaissance details such as scallop-shell gables, an unusual blend for the period. Inside, dozens of tombs line the walls beneath frescoes depicting rulers as saints, among them Ivan the Terrible and the early Romanovs.