ABSTRACT

The study of the Faceted Palace has considerably expanded our knowledge of medieval secular architecture. The sole surviving secular building from the time of Novgorod's independence – the Archbishop's or Faceted Palace – still remained unstudied for many years. The palace is part of the complex of buildings that made up Novgorodian Archbishop's Court, where, the chronicles tell us, masonry construction began in middle of fourteenth century. The building of the Archbishop's Palace was constructed on the orders of Archbishop Evfimii II in 1433. The Archbishop's Palace was made up of three parts. The building had an L-shaped ground plan. Its eastern section had two storeys and a cellar; the north-western, two storeys; the south-western, two-storeys and a cellar. The plan for restoration envisaged the maximum possible identification and reconstruction of the palace's original layout and spatial structure and of its Gothic architecture, which is a rarity in European Russia, with the exception, of course, of Kaliningrad Region.