The Italian Palace is located on the shore of the Italian Pond in the Merchant Harbor. Its construction began in 1720 after the end of the Northern War. At this time, Kronstadt began to turn from a military fort into a harbor for merchant ships of the Baltic countries. This palace is the most beautiful building in Kronstadt, but it is impossible to visit it because it is occupied by the military. The exposition of the Central Naval Museum is located in several rooms.
The German architect Braunstein built a three-story palace on the shore of a rectangular harbor. The architectural style of the palace reminded contemporaries of the Italian palazzo, so they called it the Italian Palace. The part of the Merchant Harbor located near the palace was also called the Italian Pond.
After the completion of the Italian Palace in 1724, it was handed over to Admiral Fyodor Apraksin. During the Northern War, he commanded the Baltic Fleet. Then the Italian Palace was listed as the property of the emperor, but later it was transferred to the Naval Cadet Corps. Since then , the military has been housed in the Italian Palace.
In front of the Italian Palace there is a monument to the navigator and hydrographer Peter Pakhtusov, who studied here. On the shore of the Italian Pond in front of the palace, ship cannons of the 18th and 19th centuries are installed.
A Blue Bridge has been built over the Bypass Canal near the Italian Palace. In this place there is a Kronstadt sea gauge - a level gauge mounted on the support of the Blue Bridge. Since the beginning of the 18th century, measurements of the Baltic Sea level have been carried out here. Subsequently, from the zero of the Kronstadt sea gauge, within the Baltic Elevation System, experts began to measure the water level throughout Russia. In 1840, a pavilion with a tide gauge (a device for measuring and recording sea level fluctuations) was built next to the Kronstadt Sea gauge.
