The Panthéon is considered to be one of the great monuments in Paris. The name itself is the Classical Greek word for "temple". Located in the 5th arrondissement in Paris' Latin Quarter, on the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève, the Panthéon looks out over all of Paris.
ORIGINAL BUILDING CONCEPTION
King Louis XV |
King Louis did recover, and entrusted Abel-François Poisson, Marquis de Marigny, with the fulfillment of his vow. In 1755, Marigny commissioned Jacques-Germain Soufflot to design the church, with construction beginning two years later in 1757, and the foundation laid in 1758. The cornerstone was laid in 1764 by the King himself; however, he did not live to see the construction's completion, which itself was delayed for economic reasons during the years preceding the French Revolution in 1789.
The structure is an early example of Neoclassic architecture, with a façade modeled on the Pantheon in Rome, surmounted by a dome that owes some of its character to Bramante's "Tempietto".
Architectural designer Jacques-Germain Soufflot had had the intention of combining the lightness and brightness of the Gothic cathedral with classical principles, but its role as a secular mausoleum required the great Gothic windows to be blocked.
Exterior, circa 1795, showing blocked windows |
The overall design was that of a Greek cross with massive portico of Corinthian columns. Its ambitious lines called for a vast building approximately 361-feet long by 276-feet wide, and 272-feet high. No less vast was its crypt.
Original construction designs by architect Soufflot |
Soufflot's masterstroke is concealed from casual view: the Triple Dome, each shell fitted within the others, permits a view through the oculus of the coffered inner dome of the second dome which has the fresco by Antoine Gros, "The Apotheosis of Saint Genevieve". The outermost dome is built of stone bound together with iron clamps and covered with lead sheathing, rather than made with carpentry construction, as was the common French practice of the 18th Century period. The entire Triple Dome is additionally supported by covered buttresses.
Triple Dome design by architect Soufflot |
Interior view under the Triple Dome |
Entrance to Crypts |
Upon the death of the popular French orator and statesman Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, Comte de Mirabeau on April 2, 1791, the National Constituent Assembly, whose president had been Mirabeau, ordered that the building be changed from a church to a secular mausoleum for the interment of notable Frenchmen, retaining Quatremère de Quincy to oversee the project. Mirabeau was the first person interred there, on April 4, 1791.
Fresco by Antoine Gros |
In 1851, Jean Bernard Léon Foucault, who was the leading experimental physicist of his day, demonstrated the rotation of the earth by constructing a 220-foot pendulum beneath the central dome of the Panthéon. Foucault determined that the period of rotation of the plane of the pendulum's oscillation varied by latitude—and that at the poles it would take the pendulum exactly 24 hours to complete one rotation, while at the equator no rotation would be observed. The remarkable experiment -- easily understood by an observer without scientific knowledge -- eventually helped erase the last traces of lingering doubt which the Church had against the fact that the Earth rotates around the Sun instead of vice versa -- providing definitive proof that helped vindicate Galileo, Copernicus and Giordano Bruno.
The original sphere from the Foucault Pendulum was temporarily displayed at the Panthéon in the mid-1990s, during renovations at the Musée des Arts et Métiers. It was later returned to the Musée des Arts et Métiers, and a copy is now displayed at the Panthéon.
Twice since 1790, during the 19th Century, the Panthéon has reverted to being a church, only to become again a meeting house dedicated to the great intellectuals of France. It was during the Third French Republic, France's form of government commencing in 1870, that building's exclusive use was decreed in 1881 to be a mausoleum.
The inscription above the entrance reads AUX GRANDS HOMMES LA PATRIE RECONNAISSANTE ("To great men, the grateful homeland"). By burying its notable people in the Panthéon, France honours them for their various achievements. Consequently, interment within the Panthéon is severely restricted and is allowed only by a parliamentary act for "National Heroes".
Crypt of Marie Curie |
By the end of 2021, the remains of more than 80 people (all men except for 6 women) will have been interred in the Panthéon -- with many being transferred from their original burial sites and re-interred there, accompanied by great ceremony. More than half of all the interments were made under Napoleon's rule during the First French Empire between 1804 and 1815.
Funeral of Victor Hugo at the Panthéon, 1885 |
France's President Emmanuel Macron recently announced a ceremony to be held on November 30, 2021 at the Panthéon to celebrate the re-interment of Josephine Baker (1906-1975), American-born entertainer and human rights/civil rights activist who became a French citizen in 1937, and who is considered to be a World War II hero in France -- a courageous member of the French Resistance. Upon her death in 1975, she was buried in the Principality of Monaco. Baker, the sixth woman to be interred in the Panthéon, will be the first Black woman to receive France's highest honour of burial at the Panthéon.
In January 2007, France's President Jacques Chirac unveiled a plaque in the Panthéon dedicated to more than 2,600 people recognized as Righteous Among the Nations by the Yad Vashem Memorial in Israel for saving the lives of Jews who would otherwise have been deported to Nazi concentration camps. The tribute in the Panthéon underlines the fact that around 3/4ths of the country's Jewish population survived World War II, often thanks to ordinary French people who provided help at the risk of their own lives.
This plaque says: Sous la chape de haine et de nuit tombée sur la France dans les années d'occupation, des lumières, par milliers, refusèrent de s'éteindre. Nommés "Juste parmi les Nations" ou restés anonymes, des femmes et des hommes, de toutes origines et de toutes conditions, ont sauvé des juifs des persécutions antisémites et des camps d'extermination.
Bravant les risques encourus, ils ont incarné l'honneur de la France, ses valeurs de justice, de tolérance et d'humanité.
Translated into English, the plaque reads as follows: Under the cloak of hatred and darkness that spread over France during the years of [Nazi] occupation, thousands of lights refused to be extinguished. Named as "Righteous among the Nations" or remaining anonymous, women and men, of all backgrounds and social classes, saved Jews from anti-Semitic persecution and the extermination camps.
Braving the risks involved, they embodied the honour of France, and its values of justice, tolerance and humanity.
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(Primary and Photo Sources: maierstorm.org; Treasures from Heaven Blog, projects.mcah.columbia.edu; the guardian.com; Leburre, Alexia, The Pantheon: Temple of the Nation, Paris: Éditions du Patrimoine (2000); Inocybe at fr. wikipedia; amusing planet.com; francetvinfo.fr)
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