Louvre Museum

The Louvre Museum, one of the most iconic and visited museums in the world, has a rich and complex history dating back to the 12th century, when the Louvre Palace was a medieval fortress built by order of Philip Augustus. Over time, the palace was transformed into a royal residence by several monarchs, including Charles V and Francis I, who kept their art collections there. However, it was only with the French Revolution that the Louvre began its journey to become the museum we know today. Officially inaugurated in 1793, the Louvre Museum opened its doors to the public as a tangible sign of the new republican order, presenting itself as the first national museum owned by the people. The collections on display came from royal collections and looting during the Napoleonic military campaigns. This period of forced acquisitions allowed the Louvre to enrich itself with masterpieces from all over Europe, such as works taken from Italian churches and Austrian and German collections, thanks to the work of Vivant Denon, the first director of the museum. After Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo in 1815, many works were returned to their rightful owners, but several remained in France, including the famous paintings by Paolo Veronese. The Napoleonic imprint on the museum is not limited to acquisitions; during his rule, the Grande Galerie was renovated to house the collection, becoming one of the most imposing and evocative exhibition spaces in the museum. Throughout the 19th century, the Louvre continued to expand and enrich its collections, not without difficulties and controversies. The transformation project of the Louvre reached one of its most significant moments in the 1980s, with President François Mitterrand launching the Grand Louvre project. Architect Ieoh Ming Pei was commissioned to design the famous glass and steel pyramid, inaugurated in 1989. This modern structure, serving as the main entrance, initially sparked controversy but has since become one of the most recognizable symbols of the museum and Paris itself. Today, the Louvre houses approximately 35,000 exhibited works, out of a total of over 300,000 objects, divided into various thematic sections: from oriental, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, and Etruscan antiquities, to painting, sculpture, graphic arts, and Islamic arts. Among the most famous works are Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, and the Winged Victory of Samothrace. The museum’s exhibition path is a journey through 7,000 years of art history, an experience that would require days to be fully appreciated. Curious anecdotes enrich the history of the Louvre. One of the most famous concerns the theft of the Mona Lisa in 1911, when the painting was stolen by a former museum employee, Vincenzo Peruggia, who believed he was returning the painting to Italy. The theft attracted worldwide attention, and the Mona Lisa was only found two years later, increasing its fame and symbolic value. The Louvre continues to evolve and adapt to modern times. In 2012, a detached branch, the Louvre-Lens, was inaugurated in northern France to allow for greater dissemination of its collections. This new exhibition space represents a further step towards the democratization of art, bringing the public closer to works that would otherwise have remained in Parisian storage.