The Louvre

Few of the nine million people from all over the world who flock to the Louvre each year are aware of the remarkable history of that place and of the buildings themselves—a fascinating story that historian James Gardner elegantly chronicles in the first full-length history of the Louvre in English. More than 7,000 years ago, men and women camped on a spot called le Louvre for reasons unknown; a clay quarry and a vineyard supported a society there in the first centuries AD. A thousand years later, King Philippe Auguste of France constructed a fortress there in 1191, just outside the walls of a city far smaller than the Paris we know today. This fortress became a royal residence under Charles V nearly two centuries later, and remained so until 1682, when Louis XIV moved his entire court to Versailles and the Louvre inherited the royal art collection, which then included the Mona Lisa, given to Francois by Leonardo da Vinci. Thereafter the fortunes of the Louvre languished until the tumultuous days of the French Revolution when, during the Reign of Terror in 1793, it first opened its doors to display the nation’s treasures. Ever since—through the Napoleonic era, the Commune, two World Wars, to the present—the Louvre has been a witness to French history, and expanded to become home to a legendary collection whose often-complicated and mysterious origins form a spectacular narrative that rivals the building’s grand stature.