2: The Repository - Today and Tomorrow

Inner courtyard (detail)

The inner courtyard of the Repository has become home to a collection of early-18th-century Italian sculpture from the Hanging Garden of the Small Hermitage (copies). The works by Antonio Tarsia and other Italian sculptors were brought to St Petersburg from Venice by Savva Raguzinsky on the orders of Peter I. The marble statues were bought to decorate the Summer Garden, the first imperial summer residence. At the present time Peter the Great’s collection of sculpture is in the Hermitage, the Summer Garden and also in the parks of Peterhof, Tsarskoye Selo and Pavlovsk.