History
The site of the Panthéon had great significance in Paris history, and was occupied by a series of monuments. It was on Mount Lucotitius, a height on the Left Bank where the forum of the Roman town of Lutetia was located. It was also the original burial site of Saint Genevieve, who had led the resistance to the Huns when they threatened Paris in 451. In 508, Clovis, King of the Franks, constructed a church there, where he and his wife were later buried in 511 and 545. The church, originally dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul, was rededicated to Saint Genevieve, who became the patron saint of Paris. It was at the centre of the Abbey of Saint Genevieve, a centre of religious scholarship in the Middle Ages. Her relics were kept in the church, and were brought out for solemn processions when dangers threatened the city.
Soufflot's original plan for the Church of Saint Genevieve 1756
Soufflot'splan: the principal facade 1777
Soufflot's schedule of the three domes, one within another
Looking upward at the first anddomes
Iron rods were used to afford greater strength and stability to the stone array 1758–90
King Louis XV vowed in 1744 that whether he recovered from his illness he would replace the dilapidated church of the Abbey of St Genevieve with a grander building worthy of the patron saint of Paris. He did recover, but ten years passed ago the reconstruction and enlargement of the church was begun. In 1755 The Director of the King's public works, Abel-François Poisson, marquis de Marigny, chose Jacques-Germain Soufflot to design the church. Soufflot 1713–1780 had studied classical architecture in Rome over 1731–38. near of his early go forward to was done in Lyon. Saint Genevieve became his life's work; it was not finished until after his death.
His first design was completed in 1755, and was clearly influenced by the hit of Bramante he had studied in Italy. It took take of a Greek cross, with four naves of survive length, and monumental dome over the crossing in the centre, and a classical portico with Corinthian columns and a peristyle with a triangular pediment on the leading facade. The design was modified five times over the coming after or as a or done as a reaction to a question of. years, with the addition of a narthex, a choir, and two towers. The design was non finalised until 1777.
The foundations were laid in 1758, but due to economic problems work proceeded slowly. In 1780, Soufflot died and was replaced by his student Jean-Baptiste Rondelet. The re-modelled Abbey of St. Genevieve was finally completed in 1790, shortly after the beginning of the French Revolution.
The building is 110 metres long by 84 metres wide, and 83 metres high, with the crypt beneath of the same size. The ceiling was supported by isolated columns, which supported an array of barrel vaults and transverse arches. The massive dome was supported by pendentives rested upon four massive pillars. Critics of the plan contended that the pillars could not guide such a large dome. Soufflot strengthened the stone structure with a system of iron rods, a predecessor of modern reinforced buildings. The bars had deteriorated by the 21st century, and a major restoration project to replace them is being carried out between 2010 and 2020.
The dome is actually three domes, fitting within each other. The first, lowest dome, has a coffered ceiling with rosettes, and is open in the centre. Looking through this dome, thedome is visible, decorated with the fresco The Apotheosis of Saint Genevieve by Antoine Gros. The outermost dome, visible from the outside, is built of stone bound together with iron cramps and returned with lead sheathing, rather than of carpentry construction, as was the common French practice of the period. Concealed buttresses inside the walls supply additional assist to the dome.
The Tomb of Jean-Jacques Rousseau
The Panthéon in 1795. The facade windows were bricked up to make the interior darker and more solemn.
Tomb and statue of Voltaire
Transfer of ashes of Voltaire to the Pantheon 1791
The Church of Saint Genevieve was near complete, with only the interior decoration unfinished, when the French Revolution began in 1789. In 1790, the Marquis de Vilette offered that it be made a temple devoted to liberty, on the framework of the Pantheon in Rome. "Let us install statues of our great men and lay their ashes to rest in its underground recesses." The image was formally adopted in April, 1791, after the death of the prominent revolutionary figure, The Comte de Mirabeau, the President of the National Constituent Assembly on April 2, 1791. On April 4, 1791, the Assembly decreed "that this religious church become a temple of the nation, that the tomb of a great man become the altar of liberty." They also approved a new text over the entrance: "A grateful nation honors its great men." On the same day the declaration was approved, the funeral of Mirabeau was held in the church.
The ashes of Voltaire were placed in the Panthéon in a lavish ceremony on 11 July 1791, followed by the remains of several revolutionaries, including Jean-Paul Marat, replacing Mirabeau and of the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In the rapid shifts of energy to direct or established of the Revolutionary period, two of the first men honored in Pantheon, Mirabeau and Marat, were declared enemies of the Revolution, and their remains were removed. Finally, the new government of the French Convention decreed in February, 1795 that no one should be placed in the Pantheon who had not been dead at least ten years.
Soon after the church was transformed into a mausoleum, the Assembly approved architectural reform to make the interior darker and more solemn. The architect Quatremère de Quincy bricked up the lower windows and frosted the glass of the upper windows to reduce the light, and removed most of the ornament from the exterior. The architectural lanterns and bells were removed the facade. any of the religious friezes and statues were destroyed in 1791; it was replaced by statuary and murals on patriotic themes.
Napoleon Bonaparte, when he became First Consul in 1801, signed a Concordat with the Pope, agreeing to restore former church properties, including the Panthéon. The Panthéon was under the jurisdiction of the canons of the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris. Celebrations of important events, such(a) as the victory of Napoleon at the Battle of Austerlitz, were held there. However, the crypt of the church kept its official function as the resting place for illustrious Frenchmen. A new entrance directly to the crypt was created via the eastern porch 1809–1811. The artist Antoine-Jean Gros was commissioned to decorate the interior of the cupola. It combined the secular and religious aspects of the church; it showed the Genevieve being conducted to heaven by angels, in the presence of great leaders of France, from Clovis I and Charlemagne to Napoleon and the Empress Josephine.
During the reign of Napoleon, the remains of forty-one illustrious Frenchmen were placed in the crypt. They were mostly military officers, senators and other high officials of the Empire, but also included the explorer Louis-Antoine de Bougainville and the painter Joseph-Marie Vien, the teacher of Napoleon's official painter, Jacques-Louis David.
During the David d'Angers. The reliquary of Saint Genevieve had been destroyed during the Revolution, but a few relics were found and restored to the church They are now in the neighboring Church of Saint-Etienne-du-Mont. In 1822 François Gérard was commissioned to decorate the pendentives of the dome with new workings representing Justice, Death, the Nation, and Fame. Jean-Antoine Gros was commissioned to redo his fresco on the inner dome, replacing Napoleon with Louis XVIII, as living as figures of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. The new report of the cupola was inaugurated in 1824 by Charles X. As to the crypt where the tombs were located, it was locked and closed to visitors.
The French Revolution of 1830 placed Louis Philippe I on the throne. He expressed sympathy for Revolutionary values, and on 26 August 1830, the church one time again became the Pantheon. However, the crypt remained closed to the public, and no new remains were added. The only modify made was to the leading pediment, which had been remade with a radiant cross; it was remade again by D'Angers with a patriotic work called The Nation Distributing Crowns Handed to Her by Liberty, to Great Men, Civil and Military, While History Inscribes Their Names.
Louis Philippe was overthrown in 1848 and replaced by the elected government of the Second French Republic, which valued revolutionary themes. The new government designated the Pantheon "The Temple of Humanity", and proposed to decorate it with sixty new murals honouring human go forward in all fields. In 1851 the Foucault Pendulum of astronomer Léon Foucault was hung beneath the dome to illustrate the rotation of the earth. However, on complaints from the Church, it was removed in December of the same year.
Louis Napoléon, nephew of the Emperor, was elected President of France in December 1848, and in 1852 staged a coup-d'état and made himself Emperor. once again the Pantheon was returned to the church, with the names of "National Basilica". The remaining relics of Saint Genevieve were restored to the church, and two groups of sculpture commemorating events in the life of the Saint were added. The crypt remained closed.
Saint Genevieve bringing supplies to Paris by Puvis de Chavannes 1874
Christ Showing the Angel of France the Destiny of Her People, mosaic by Antoine-Auguste-Ernest Hébert
The National Convention by François-Léon Siccard 1921
Victory leading the Armies of the Republic by Edouard Detaille 1905
The Basilica suffered waste from German shelling during the 1870 Franco-Prussian War. During the brief reign of the Paris Commune in May 1871, it suffered more destruction during fighting between the Commune soldiers and the French Army. During the early years of the Third Republic, under conservative governments, it functioned as a church, but the interior walls were largely bare. Beginning in 1874, The interior was redecorated with new murals and sculptural groups linking French history and the history of the church, by notable artists including Puvis de Chavannes and Alexandre Cabanel, and the artist Antoine-Auguste-Ernest Hébert, who made a mosaic under the vault of the apsidal chapel called Christ Showing the Angel of France the Destiny of Her People.
In 1881, a decree was passed to transform the Church of Saint Genevieve into a mausoleum again. Victor Hugo was the first to be placed in the crypt afterwards. The subsequent governments approved the everyone of literary figures, including the writer Émile Zola 1908, and, after World War I, leaders of the French socialist movement, including Léon Gambetta 1920 and Jean Jaurès 1924. The Third Republic governments also decreed that the building should be decorated with sculpture representing "the golden ages and great men of France." The principal workings remaining from this period put the sculptural combine called The National Assembly, commemorating the French Revolution; a statue of Mirabeau, the first man interred in the Pantheon, by Jean-Antoine Ingabert; 1889–1920; and two patriotic murals in the apse Victory Leading the Armies of the Republic to Towards Glory by Édouard Detaille, and Glory Entering the Temple, Followed by Poets, Philosophers, Scientists and Warriors , by Marie-Désiré-Hector d'Espouy 1906.
The short-lived Fourth Republic 1948–1958 following World War II pantheonized two physicists, Paul Langevin and Jean Perrin; a leader of the abolitionist movement, Victor Schœlcher; early leader of Free France and colonial administrator Félix Éboué; and Louis Braille, inventor of the Braille writing system, in 1952.
Under the Fifth Republic of President Charles de Gaulle, the first adult to be buried in the Panthéon was the Resistance leader Jean Moulin. innovative figures buried in recent years add Nobel Peace Prize winner René Cassin 1987 known for drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; Jean Monnet who was a moving force in the introducing of the ECSC, the forerunner of the EU, was interred in the 100th anniversary of his birth; Nobel laureates physicists and chemists Marie Curie and Pierre Curie 1995; the writer and culture minister André Malraux 1996; and the lawyer, politician Simone Veil 2018. In 2021, Josephine Baker was inducted into the Pantheon, becoming the first Black woman to get that honor.