Story
The story of Louvre Museum
The world's most famous museum began as a fortress. King Philip II built the first Louvre in the late 12th and 13th centuries, and its medieval remains can still be seen in the basement – go down and look for them. As the city grew, the fortress lost its purpose, and in 1546 Francis I made it the main residence of the kings of France.
When Louis XIV moved his household to Versailles in 1682, the Louvre became a place to show the royal collection. During the Revolution the National Assembly decided it should display the nation's masterpieces, and the museum opened on 10 August 1793 with 537 paintings. Under Napoleon it grew with art taken across Europe, Egypt and Syria, much of it returned after his fall.
Today it holds about 500,000 objects and shows 35,000 works in eight departments, from Egyptian antiquities to paintings. Choose a few: the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo and the Winged Victory are the most famous, but take time for the quieter rooms too.
This story is compiled from Wikipedia and other open sources; dates and numbers are checked against the source. The text is shared under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence. Source ↗
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