(Source: http://uarunews.ru)

 The Facets Chamber

It is one of the richest buildings of the Russian Middle Ages. Since the time of Ivan the Great it was the throne hall of Moscow princes; solemn meeting of foreign embassies and other semi-official entertainments were held here.

The Chamber was built in 1487-1491 by the Italian architects Marco Fryazin and Pietro Antonio Solari. The friso of the northern facade has a mysterious bust (a part of its face is beaten with bullets: most probably, French or Polish-Lithuanian visitors competed in aiming accuracy) which was previously considered a portrait of one of the Italian builders of the Chamber, but modern scholars say that the sculpture is of an apparent late origin.

The Facets Chamber originally had a different look, characteristic of quattrocento imported by the Italians: double “Gothic” lancet windows and a high roof. But the main difference was that the building had the appearance of a fortress palace: the lower tier had no doors, the rustic joint lasted until the base, and base, now hidden with the cultural layer, had the appearance of a powerful Italian counterforce (this fact is the discovery of the year 2011).

It is no coincidence that the foreign ambassadors called the Palace “The Castle of the Great Prince” - it was fenced with battlements from the South, West, and possibly from the North, and the East side was available only to the elite rising to the upper terrace by the entrance marches fenced off with gilded railings of stairs.

The ancient “everyday and allegoric” paintings of the Chamber of the end of XVI century are not preserved, but the current paintings made in 1882 are based on the ancient ones.