Masterpieces of the Louvre [antikvár]

The Louvre dales back to 1200, when Philip Augustus had a fortress built near the river for defense purposes: it occupied more or less a fourth of today's Cow Carrée. The fortress irai not. then, the royal residence (the king, in fact, preferred living in the Cité) but it housed, among other things, the royal treasure and the archives. In the 14lh Century Charles V. the Wise, rendered the fortress more habitable and took it as his residence. One of his additions was the famous Librairie: this construction earned him the appellative by which he became known in history. After his reign the Louvre was not used as the royal residence again until 1546, when Francis I commissioned the architect Pierre Lescot to improve the residence and render it more in keeping with the new Renaissance tastes. He had the old fortress demolished: the new palace rose on its foundations. Work continued under Henry IL After his death, Caterina de' Medici entrusted Philibert Delorme with the construction of the Tuileries palace and a long wing reaching out toward the Seine to join it to the Louvre. Work, interrupted at Delorme's death, continued and was terminated under Henry IV, who had the Pavilion de Flore constructed. The enlargement of the edifice continued under Louis XIII and Louis XIV with the completion of the Cour Carrée, which, by merit of the richness of its sculptoral decoration, became the most prestigious part of the so-called Old Louvre, and with the construction of the east façade with the Colonnade. When the court moved to Versailles in 1682, work on the Louvre was almost totally abandoned: even the palace itself became so rundown that in 1750 it was thought to demolish it outright. One may say that the women of the Parisian markets saved the Louvre when they marched on Versailles on October 6, 1789 to bring the royal family back to Paris. After the tumultuous years of the Revolution, Napoleon finally took up work on the Louvre again. His architects, Percier and Fontaine, began construction of the north wing. It was finished in 1852 under Napoleon III, who decided,finally, to complete the Louvre. With the fire and consequent destruction of the Tuileries during the siege of the city in May of 1871, the Louvre took on its present aspect. Even though the name "Louvre" properly refers to the palace, it is today identified with the celebrated Museum. The collecr lion of works there exhibited is so vast that the Louvre has often been defined "the world's most important museum." From an initial nucleus of works, the Louvre collection grew with the collections of the Kings of France; its continual expansion has since been assured by a wise buying policy and generous donations. Francis I is unanimously recognized as the founder of this important collection. The sovreigns preceeding him had commissioned and brought works of art—especially paintings—but until his time these were isolated episodes. Francis I (1515-1547) began a real and proper collection of all genres of works in order to enrich the royal residence at Fontainebleau. He will succeed in commissioning the most important artist of the times, Leonardo da Vinci, and thus in attaining ownership of some of Leonardo's most important works: for example, the "Monna Lisa" and the "Virgin of the Rocks." During the same period, works by such Italian