Empress Catherine II of Russia

[LouisFerdinand]

In 1763 Empress Catherine II learned that a collection of 225 paintings accumulated by a Polish art dealer in Berlin who regularly supplied pictures to King Frederick II of Prussia had not been paid for.   
Frederick had decided that he could not afford them. Catherine bought the entire collection.

[LouisFerdinand]

Empress Catherine II supported the new smallpox vaccination. She founded a medical college and a foundling home.

[LouisFerdinand]

In her first summer as Empress, Catherine II issued a decree on August 8, 1762, declaring that, in, future, owners of factories and mines were forbidden to purchase serfs for industrial labor apart from purchasing the land to which the serfs were bound.

[LouisFerdinand]

The coronation of Empress Catherine II meant a three day holiday, the distribution of largesse, the lifting of fines and taxes, and pardons for lesser offenses.

[LouisFerdinand]

With Empress Catherine II, by imperial manifesto issued on February 26, 1764, all ecclesiastical lands and property became state property. The church itself became a state institution.

[LouisFerdinand]

During the first summer of her reign, the subject looming largest in Catherine II's mind was her coronation. She proclaimed that she would be crowned in Moscow in September. September 22 was to be the day of coronation. The ceremony lasted four hours. Catherine crowned herself with a huge nine pound imperial crown.

[LouisFerdinand]

On March 25, 1771 Empress Catherine II bought the collection of paintings of Pierre Crozat. It included eight works by Rembrandt, four by Veronese, a dozen by Rubens, seven by Van Dyck, and several by Raphael, Titian, and Tintoretto.

[LouisFerdinand]

During Catherine II's first week on the throne, couriers were riding to European capitals with assurances that the new Empress wished to live in peace with all foreign powers.

[LouisFerdinand]

At Catherine II's betrothal banquet, by rank the bride's mother, Princess Johanna of Holstein-Gottorp could not sit at the imperial table with Empress Elizabeth, Grand Duke Peter, and Grand Duchess Catherine. Elizabeth ordered a separate table for Johanna.

[LouisFerdinand]

In 1791 Empress Catherine II ordered all the bookshops to register with the Academy of Sciences their catalogs of available books that were opposed to religion and decency. In 1792 she ordered the confiscation of a complete edition of the books of Voltaire.

[LouisFerdinand]

On June 4, 1763, Catherine issued a Manifesto of Silence. To beating drums, people across the empire were summoned into the public squares to listen to the heralds reading her proclamation. Her proclamation declared that everyone should go about his own business and refrain from all useless and unseemly gossip and criticism of the government.

[LouisFerdinand]

In 1767 Empress Catherine II announced that she would make a voyage down the Volga. She would cruise through the heartland of Old Russia. The voyage was on a grand scale. Traveling south down the Volga River, Catherine marveled at the wealth of nature along its banks.

[LouisFerdinand]

In 1763 Empress Catherine II appointed Gregory Potemkin as assistant to the Procurator of the Holy Synod, who oversaw church administration and finances.

[LouisFerdinand]

On July 10, 1774 the Treaty of Kuchuk Kainardzhi was signed. Empress Catherine II's Russia acquired the southern delta of the Dnieper River and the mouth of the river. Catherine's empire had a vital outlet to the Black Sea.

[LouisFerdinand]

Grand Duke Peter (Emperor Peter III of Russia) and Sophia of Anhalt-Zerbst (Empress Catherine II of Russia) were married at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan in St. Petersburg, Russia on August 21, 1745.

[LouisFerdinand]

The five daughters of Gregory Potemkin's widowed sister, Maria Engelhardt were brought to the court of Empress Catherine II of Russia. All five ladies were created maids of honor.