Vorontsov Palace

This mid-eighteenth-century Baroque palace by Bartolomeo Rastrelli was built for the chancellor Mikhail Vorontsov and later served the Knights of Malta, who added a refined Maltese chapel to the complex. Its long ochre facade and ornate railings line a central Saint Petersburg street, and for much of the imperial period the building housed a prestigious military cadet corps. The palace illustrates the layered institutional history common to many of the city's grand houses.