PARIS

Nicolas de La Mare, Antoine Coquart, Nicolas de Fer: Septieme Plan de la Ville de Paris, its growth and its embellishments under Henry IIII and Louis III from 1589 to 1643; Paris 1643

This walking tour would take you through the streets of Le Marais: the neighborhood where the French nobility built their hôtel particuliers (city mansions) before moving to Versailles; and where the artisans that made their clothes and furniture used to have their ateliers. The area is characterized by: baroque architecture, hidden gardens and cool boutiques/restaurants. After the Valois and Habsburg’s dynasties fought for Milan and Naples (1494-1559), the classic style of the Greco-Romans entered France, causing a construction boom of palaces. King Henry Ist of France transformed the Louvre from a castle into a palace during the 1520s, brought Leonardo Da Vinci to the kingdom, and married one of his sons to a not-noble floretine girl, Catherine Medici. She turned out to be one of the most influential queens of France and commissioned the now gone Tuileries Palace and its gardens in 1564. After the French War of Religion (1562-1598) that decimated the city a new family rose to power, the Bourbon dynasty — and with them the extravagant royal era of France began! The city got rebuilt embracing the baroque style characterized by: the use of columns, semicircular arches, and a lot of sculptures inspired by the churches and villas of Tuscany and the Veneto. Henry IV of France ordered the expansion of the Louvre (le grand dessein) in 1595, commissioned the construction of Place des Vosges in 1605, Place Dauphine in 1607, and finished the Pont Neuf that same year. When he died the consort queen (another Medici girl) Marie de Medici commissioned her own palace in 1615, the Luxembourg Palace and she became a patron of the arts with the painters Paul Rubens, Nicolas Poussin, and Philippe de Champaigne as her protégés. In art the style is characterized by: dramatic poses, dark backgrounds and the use of chiaroscuro (shading). The term baroque comes from the Portuguese term barroco which means 'a flawed pearl', and by the XVI century it was used to describe anything that seemed absurdly complex; other sources associate the term with magic, confusion and excess which describes the lifestyle of the nobility — particularly that of the Bourbon dynasty of the 4-Louises: XIII, XIV, XV & XVI. This is the time when the French court became known for its wine, cheese and furniture turning the kingdom into the factory of the Spanish Empire, with Paris slowly taking over Venice as the center of craftsmanship and luxury in Europe. Louis the XIII along side the influential Cardinal Richelieu set the groundwork for the Ancien Régime (absolute monarchy): a system of government where a king claims to have inherited spiritual authority to rule over its citizens — and with that a whole protocol inspired by the Byzantine emperors emerged known as the French etiquette. Paris was getting enlightened, crowded and liberal, so the French court left the city to the Palace of Versailles in 1682; and the nobles moved from le Marais to newer mansions in the Fauburg Saint -Germain district. The tour suggest visiting 2 museums that used to be hôtel particuliers in the XVII century during the morning; lunch plus a historic baroque church in the afternoon; and an architectural walking tour with a stop at a pâtisserie in the evening.

Stops:

1 National Archive Museum plus coffee break

2 Carnavalet Museum

3 Lunch at La Favorite Saint Paul

4 Relax in Saint-Paul Saint-Louis Church

5 Hôtel de Sully plus a baguette at Place des Vosges

6 Dessert at the pâtisserie Au Petit Versailles

7 Baroque Walking Tour

Hendrick Mommers: View of Paris with the Louvre, Taken from the Henri IV Bridge (Pont Neuf); Paris, 1666

Hyacinthe Rigaud: Portrait de Louis XIV en costume de sacre; Paris, 1701