When you’re talking about the Musee de Louvre, it’s easy — maybe even necessary — to speak in superlatives. Besides being the largest structure in Paris (it stretches for almost half a mile) and the largest palace in Europe, it is also the largest museum in the Western world with a stunning collection of art placed in the most exquisite of settings. But the Louvre’s origins were humble, for it began as a moderately sized, crenulated fortress with circular towers in the 12th century. In addition, after many transformations, the nucleus of its first art collection consisted of a mere 12 paintings, although they included such Old Masters as Leonardo da Vinci, Titian and Raphael.
The fortress that was called the Louvre started taking on royal trappings when Francois I agreed to live in the structure. He subsequently tore most of it down and rebuilt it so that it would form a suitable royal residence. In the late 1500s, the Tuileries Palace was added at the far end of the structure by Catherine de Medicis, and the two units were then joined by a long gallery. Formal gardens were also laid out. And so it went, with frequent additions, restorations, refinements and even more expansions by a succession of kings. But it started to deteriorate when royalty chose to live elsewhere, and the Louvre turned into a home for minor courtiers. Later, artists and squatters took over empty apartments.
Toward the end of the 18th century, after a series of renovations, the Louvre was finally turned into a museum. It first opened its doors to the public in 1793, and its collection was later immensely enhanced when Napoleon’s armies swept over Europe and plundered famous treasures, including ancient temples, paintings and fresco-covered walls.
All in all, it took seven centuries to build the 224 halls and the Grande Galerie, which is longer than three football fields. It spanned the lives of 17 monarchs and numerous architects and designers. Its latest additions include I.M. Pei’s 71-foot-high glass pyramid, unveiled in 1989, which serves as the museum’s central entrance, and the incorporation of the Richelieu wing into the museum in 1993, which doubled the size of the exhibition space. Today, the Louvre holds an overwhelming 350,000 pieces of art (only 30,000 of them are on display at any one time) from almost all ages and cultures.
To get around, it helps to know that the entire dazzling collection is divided into seven main categories: oriental antiquities; Egyptian antiquities; Greek and Roman antiquities; sculptures; paintings, prints and drawings; furniture, and art objects.
You need to be a track star to cover it all. According to one writer, “The Louvre Museum is a delicious, often indigestible 99-course feast.” Because of its intimidating size and to avoid cultural overload, the best way to see the highlights is with repeat visits or, if pressed for time, on a guided tour. Among a few of the spellbinding major attractions are the classical Greek marvel, Venus de Milo ; the headless Winged Victory of Samothrace with swirling robes and feathered wings that graces the top of a 53-step marble stairway; the French Crown Jewels, among which is the 186-carat Regent diamond; the Law Code of Hammurabi, the 1780 B.C. stela from Babylon that contains the oldest written laws known to man; and Michelangelo’s two unfinished Slaves , one languorous, the other struggling, which was intended for the tomb of Pope Julius II.
Leonardo da Vinci’s enigmatic Mona Lisa (La Gioconda) is, of course, on that list, and a Mona Lisa Gallery is in the planning stages, but until another setting is completed for this masterpiece, you might find yourself making tracks for other galleries as this treasure, protected behind bulletproof glass, is competing not only with other works of art in a small, dark room, but choked with art lovers who push digital cameras in front of your face, obscuring your view, in order to capture this beloved painting on film.
But there is so much more you can see over the Louvre’s six miles of galleries — the Borghese Gladiator sculpture, Assyrian temples, Marie Antoinette’s furniture, the grandiose Napoleon III apartments, huge Gobelins tapestries, fragments of the frieze from the Parthenon and ancient Egyptian household furniture. For information, call (33) 01-40-20-50-50, or visit the Web site at www.louvre.fr or e-mail infolouvre.fr.
