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St. Isaac of Dalmatia was the patron saint of the Romanov family. The present version of St. Isaac's, the fourth, was constructed from 1818 to 1858.
First notable was the third version, when Catherine the Great decided she wanted a huge marble St. Isaac's, and construction began in 1768. This dragged on and was hastily completed in 1802, but the result was different from the original plan and was neither pretty nor well built. When a rotten ceiling plaster fell during the Easter service in 1816, Alexander I decided to get the St. Isaac's rebuilt again.
Everything was done on a grand scale. Half precious stones, seventeen different types of marble, granite and other stones were delivered from all over the country. The portico columns, cut from red granite, are seventeen meters high; the mosaic inside has twelve thousand shades and colours, the walls are five meters thick; the cupola is coated with one hundred kilograms of gold; and the whole of it weighs three hundred thousand tons! Inside there are paintings, sculptures, and mosaics by 19th century Russian and European masters, including a huge fresco on the inside of the cupola.
Now it is the second largest basilica in the world after St. Paul's in Rome.