The Palace of the Sun

The Palace of the Sun is the first substantial book-length study of the parts of the Louvre built under Louis XIV in the 1660s and 1670s since Louis Hautecoeur's Le Louvre et les Tuileries de Louis XIV (1927). Berger discusses a broad range of topics, from architectural symbolism to structural analysis. All the varied ideas for completing the Louvre from the beginning of the 17th century and forward are surveyed, and the evolution of the final design during the crucial years 1667-68 is analyzed in full detail. The text is supported throughout by a corpus of source documents and writings never before assembled in one place. Here, for the first time, all the known drawings for the Sun King's Louvre are published together, accompanied by a catalogue raisonné.

“This is a good book. It supplements the famous documentary histories by Elizabeth Holt while focusing on a city which was, as the author argues, the site of many innovations with respect to the display and public consumption of art in the pre-modern period. The translations are sound and the writing is clear.”—Andrew McClellan, Tufts University

“This is an important book for all students of European and architectural history. The implications of it should interest all of those who, for one reason or another, are attracted by the extraordinary design, administration of the arts, and the mentality of the time of Louis XIV.”—Guy Walton, New York University

“Specialists on seventeenth-century French architecture will find [this book] an indispensable work, while more general readers will turn to Chapter III to learn the history of the Colonnade. Berger brings out new dimensions of the Colonnade, such as the contributions of François Le Vau and Fréart de Chambray, and he handles the contentious issue of authorship with balance and fine historical judgment, though his position on these issues will not be uncontroversial.”—Hilary Ballon, Columbia University

Robert W. Berger is the author of Antoine Le Pautre: A French Architect of the Era of Louis XIV (1969), Versailles: The Château of Louis XIV (Penn State, 1985), In the Garden of the Sun King: Studies on the Park of Versailles Under Louis XIV (1985), The Palace of the Sun: The Louvre of Louis XIV (Penn State, 1993) and A Royal Passion: Louis XIV as Patron of Architecture (1994).

Art History & Architecture

           Medieval

           Art Theory & Criticism

Medieval and Early Modern Studies

           Medieval Art and Architecture