Tourist attractions in Paris : Panthéon
The Pantheon is a building in the Latin Quarter in the 5th arrondissement of Paris. It was originally built as a church dedicated to St. Genevieve, but after many changes, now functions as a secular mausoleum containing the remains of distinguished French citizens. It is an early example of Neoclassicism, with a facade modeled after the Pantheon in Rome surmounted by a dome that owes some of its character to San Pietro in Montorio, a church in Rome which was built by Donato Bramante.
Just like every famous building, the Pantheon has also its own story. In 1744, Louis XV vowed that if he recovered from his illness, he would replace the ruined church of the Abbey of St Genevieve with an edifice worthy of the patron saint of Paris. He did recover, so Jacques-Germain Soufflot was commissioned in 1755 to design the church. The construction began two years later in 1757 and it took 34 years until the project was completed.
Soufflot had the intention of combining the lightness and brightness of the Gothic cathedral with classical principles. But he died before his work was achieved, and his plans were not entirely followed by his associate, Guillaume Rondelet, who took charge of the project.
The building was finished in 1791, in the midst of the French Revolution. It was then when the revolutionist government changed the church into a mausoleum, a place to bury exceptional Frenchmen who had sacrificed their lives for their country or who had done something great for France. In 1806 the building was turned into a church again, but since 1885 the Panthéon serves as a civic building. It is considered one of the greatest neoclassical monuments and a true masterpiece.
The Pantheon has a large crypt, covering the whole surface of the building, accommodates the vaults of many well known French writers, poets and scientists. Some of the most famous among them are Victor Hugo, Voltaire, Jean Monnet, Marie and Pierre Curie and Emile Zola.
The dome with its height of 85m (272 ft) inspired the physicist Leon Foucault to carry out his first experiments in 1851 to demonstrated the rotation of the earth by constructing a 67 meter Foucault pendulum beneath the central dome. A copy of the pendulum is now displayed at this place.
Text Source: pantheonparis.com
