Relief: Section of Saint Isaac's Cathedral Door

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This high relief of a priest is part of the Saint Isaac's cathedral's bronze door, adorned with intricate reliefs by Ivan Vitali, patterned after the celebrated doors of the Battistero di San Giovanni in Florence, designed by Lorenzo Ghiberti. The iconostasis is framed by eight columns of semiprecious stone: six malachite and two smaller ones of lazurite. The four pediments are also richly sculpted. Saint Isaac's Cathedral or Isaakievskiy Sobor in Saint Petersburg, Russia, stands as the largest Russian Orthodox cathedral in the city, boasting the title of largest orthodox basilica and fourth-largest (by volume under the cupola) cathedral worldwide. Dedicated to Saint Isaac of Dalmatia, a patron saint of Peter the Great, who was born on the feast day of that saint. The church on St Isaac's Square was commissioned by Tsar Alexander I to replace an earlier structure by Vincenzo Brenna, and it marked the fifth consecutive church standing at this location. The cathedral took 40 years to construct under Montferrand's direction from 1818 to 1858. The neoclassical exterior expresses the traditional Russian-Byzantine formula of a Greek-cross ground plan with a large central dome and four subsidiary domes.