1.
Italy
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Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino, Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate and Mediterranean climate. Due to its shape, it is referred to in Italy as lo Stivale. With 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth most populous EU member state, the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom, which eventually became a republic that conquered and assimilated other nearby civilisations. The legacy of the Roman Empire is widespread and can be observed in the distribution of civilian law, republican governments, Christianity. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science, exploration, Italian culture flourished at this time, producing famous scholars, artists and polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. The weakened sovereigns soon fell victim to conquest by European powers such as France, Spain and Austria. Despite being one of the victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil. The subsequent participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in defeat, economic destruction. Today, Italy has the third largest economy in the Eurozone and it has a very high level of human development and is ranked sixth in the world for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military, cultural and diplomatic affairs, as a reflection of its cultural wealth, Italy is home to 51 World Heritage Sites, the most in the world, and is the fifth most visited country. The assumptions on the etymology of the name Italia are very numerous, according to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú, meaning land of young cattle. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The name Italia originally applied only to a part of what is now Southern Italy – according to Antiochus of Syracuse, but by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name Italia to a larger region, excavations throughout Italy revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Palaeolithic period, some 200,000 years ago, modern Humans arrived about 40,000 years ago. Other ancient Italian peoples of undetermined language families but of possible origins include the Rhaetian people and Cammuni. Also the Phoenicians established colonies on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily, the Roman legacy has deeply influenced the Western civilisation, shaping most of the modern world
2.
Baroque
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The style began around 1600 in Rome and Italy, and spread to most of Europe. The aristocracy viewed the dramatic style of Baroque art and architecture as a means of impressing visitors by projecting triumph, power, Baroque palaces are built around an entrance of courts, grand staircases, and reception rooms of sequentially increasing opulence. However, baroque has a resonance and application that extend beyond a reduction to either a style or period. It is also yields the Italian barocco and modern Spanish barroco, German Barock, Dutch Barok, others derive it from the mnemonic term Baroco, a supposedly laboured form of syllogism in logical Scholastica. The Latin root can be found in bis-roca, in informal usage, the word baroque can simply mean that something is elaborate, with many details, without reference to the Baroque styles of the 17th and 18th centuries. The word Baroque, like most periodic or stylistic designations, was invented by later critics rather than practitioners of the arts in the 17th, the term Baroque was initially used in a derogatory sense, to underline the excesses of its emphasis. In particular, the term was used to describe its eccentric redundancy and noisy abundance of details, although it was long thought that the word as a critical term was first applied to architecture, in fact it appears earlier in reference to music. Another hypothesis says that the word comes from precursors of the style, Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola and he did not make the distinctions between Mannerism and Baroque that modern writers do, and he ignored the later phase, the academic Baroque that lasted into the 18th century. Long despised, Baroque art and architecture became fashionable between the two World Wars, and has remained in critical favour. In painting the gradual rise in popular esteem of Caravaggio has been the best barometer of modern taste, William Watson describes a late phase of Shang-dynasty Chinese ritual bronzes of the 11th century BC as baroque. The term Baroque may still be used, usually pejoratively, describing works of art, craft, the appeal of Baroque style turned consciously from the witty, intellectual qualities of 16th-century Mannerist art to a visceral appeal aimed at the senses. It employed an iconography that was direct, simple, obvious, germinal ideas of the Baroque can also be found in the work of Michelangelo. Even more generalised parallels perceived by some experts in philosophy, prose style, see the Neapolitan palace of Caserta, a Baroque palace whose construction began in 1752. In paintings Baroque gestures are broader than Mannerist gestures, less ambiguous, less arcane and mysterious, more like the stage gestures of opera, Baroque poses depend on contrapposto, the tension within the figures that move the planes of shoulders and hips in counterdirections. Baroque is a style of unity imposed upon rich, heavy detail, Baroque style featured exaggerated lighting, intense emotions, release from restraint, and even a kind of artistic sensationalism. There were highly diverse strands of Italian baroque painting, from Caravaggio to Cortona, the most prominent Spanish painter of the Baroque was Diego Velázquez. The later Baroque style gradually gave way to a more decorative Rococo, while the Baroque nature of Rembrandts art is clear, the label is less often used for Vermeer and many other Dutch artists. Flemish Baroque painting shared a part in this trend, while continuing to produce the traditional categories
3.
Venice
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Venice is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is situated across a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and these are located in the shallow Venetian Lagoon, an enclosed bay that lies between the mouths of the Po and the Piave Rivers. Parts of Venice are renowned for the beauty of their settings, their architecture, the lagoon and a part of the city are listed as a World Heritage Site. In 2014,264,579 people resided in Comune di Venezia, together with Padua and Treviso, the city is included in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area, with a total population of 2.6 million. PATREVE is a metropolitan area without any degree of autonomy. The name is derived from the ancient Veneti people who inhabited the region by the 10th century BC, the city was historically the capital of the Republic of Venice. Venice has been known as the La Dominante, Serenissima, Queen of the Adriatic, City of Water, City of Masks, City of Bridges, The Floating City, and City of Canals. The City State of Venice is considered to have been the first real international financial center which gradually emerged from the 9th century to its peak in the 14th century and this made Venice a wealthy city throughout most of its history. It is also known for its several important artistic movements, especially the Renaissance period, Venice has played an important role in the history of symphonic and operatic music, and it is the birthplace of Antonio Vivaldi. Venice has been ranked the most beautiful city in the world as of 2016, the name Venetia, however, derives from the Roman name for the people known as the Veneti, and called by the Greeks Eneti. The meaning of the word is uncertain, although there are other Indo-European tribes with similar-sounding names, such as the Celtic Veneti, Baltic Veneti, and the Slavic Wends. Linguists suggest that the name is based on an Indo-European root *wen, so that *wenetoi would mean beloved, lovable, a connection with the Latin word venetus, meaning the color sea-blue, is also possible. The alternative obsolete form is Vinegia, some late Roman sources reveal the existence of fishermen on the islands in the original marshy lagoons. They were referred to as incolae lacunae, the traditional founding is identified with the dedication of the first church, that of San Giacomo on the islet of Rialto — said to have taken place at the stroke of noon on 25 March 421. Beginning as early as AD166 to 168, the Quadi and Marcomanni destroyed the center in the area. The Roman defences were again overthrown in the early 5th century by the Visigoths and, some 50 years later, New ports were built, including those at Malamocco and Torcello in the Venetian lagoon. The tribuni maiores, the earliest central standing governing committee of the islands in the Lagoon, the traditional first doge of Venice, Paolo Lucio Anafesto, was actually Exarch Paul, and his successor, Marcello Tegalliano, was Pauls magister militum. In 726 the soldiers and citizens of the Exarchate rose in a rebellion over the controversy at the urging of Pope Gregory II
4.
France
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France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks
5.
Adam Elsheimer
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Adam Elsheimer was a German artist working in Rome who died at only thirty-two, but was very influential in the early 17th century in the field of Baroque paintings. His relatively few paintings were small scale, nearly all painted on copper plates and they include a variety of light effects, and an innovative treatment of landscape. He was an influence on other artists, including Rembrandt. Elsheimer was born in Frankfurt am Main, one of ten children and his fathers house was a few metres from the church where Albrecht Dürers Heller Altarpiece was then displayed. He was apprenticed to the artist Philipp Uffenbach and he probably visited Strasbourg in 1596. At the age of twenty, he travelled to Italy via Munich and his stay in Venice is undocumented, but the influence on his style is clear. He probably worked as an assistant to Johann Rottenhammer, some of whose drawings he owned, Rottenhammer was a German who had been living in Italy for some years, and was the first German painter to specialize in cabinet paintings. In early 1600, Elsheimer arrived in Rome and quickly made friends with contacts of Rottenhammer, notably Giovanni Faber, a Papal doctor, botanist and collector originally from Bamberg. He was Curator of the Vatican Botanical Garden, and a member of the Accademia dei Lincei, a small intellectual coterie founded in 1603, like Faber, Bril was a long-term resident in Rome who had converted from Lutheranism to Catholicism, as Elsheimer did later. Both Faber and Bril knew Rubens, who was in Rome in 1601, and he knew David Teniers the Elder, recently Rubens pupil, and there is evidence that they lodged together. In 1604 Karel van Mander, a Dutchman recently returned from Rome, published his Schilder-Boeck which praised Elsheimers work and he also spent much time in churches, studying the works of the masters. Other writers mention his exceptional memory, his melancholy and his kind-heartedness. In 1606, Elsheimer married Carola Antonia Stuarda da Francoforte, the son was not mentioned in a census a year later, possibly because he had been put out to a wet-nurse. She was the recent widow of the artist Nicolas de Breul and after Elsheimers death remarried an Italian artist, Ascanio Quercia, Elsheimer converted to Catholicism by 1608. He was admitted to the Accademia di San Luca, the Roman painters Guild, in 1606, in spite of his fame and talents, he appears to have both lived and died in difficult financial circumstances. Elsheimers painting of Tobias and the Angel was especially well received because of its new conception of landscape and this picture was engraved by Count Hendrick Goudt and as a result was published across Europe. However, his association with Goudt, who lodged and trained him for several years, was difficult. Elsheimer seems to have borrowed money from Goudt, which according to one account resulted in his incarceration in Debtors prison
6.
Icarus
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In Greek mythology, Icarus is the son of the master craftsman Daedalus, the creator of the Labyrinth. Often depicted in art, Icarus and his attempt to escape from Crete by means of wings that his father constructed from feathers. Icarus father warns him first of complacency and then of hubris, asking that he fly neither too low nor too high, Icarus ignored his fathers instructions not to fly too close to the sun, when the wax in his wings melted and he fell into the sea. This tragic theme of failure at the hands of hubris contains similarities to that of Phaëthon. Minos imprisoned Daedalus himself in the labyrinth because he gave Minoss daughter, Ariadne, a clew in order to help Theseus, Daedalus fashioned two pairs of wings out of wax and feathers for himself and his son. Daedalus tried his wings first, but before trying to escape the island, he warned his son not to fly too close to the sun, nor too close to the sea, but to follow his path of flight. Overcome by the giddiness that flying lent him, Icarus soared into the sky, but in the process he came too close to the sun, heracles erected a tomb for him. Icarus flight was often alluded to by Greek poets in passing, in the literature of ancient Rome, the myth was of interest to Augustan writers. Hyginus narrates it in Fabula 40, beginning with the love affair of Pasiphaë, daughter of the Sun. Ovid narrates the story of Icarus at some length in the Metamorphoses, auden and Landscape with the Fall of Icarus by William Carlos Williams. Literary interpretation has found in the myth the structure and consequence of personal over-ambition, an Icarus-related study of the Daedalus myth was published by the French hellenist Françoise Frontisi-Ducroux. In psychology there have been studies of the Icarus complex with respect to the alleged relationship between fascination for fire, enuresis, high ambition, and ascensionism. In the psychiatric mind features of disease were perceived in the shape of the pendulous emotional ecstatic-high, the Greek Myths, section 92 passim Smith, William, ed. A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology Pinsent, J. Greek Mythology
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Caravaggisti
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The Caravaggisti were stylistic followers of the 16th-century Italian Baroque painter Caravaggio. His influence on the new Baroque style that emerged from Mannerism was profound. Caravaggio never established a workshop as most other painters did, nor did he ever set out his underlying philosophical approach to art, the psychological realism which can only be deduced from his surviving work. But it can be directly or indirectly in the work of Rubens, Jusepe de Ribera, Bernini. Famous while he lived, Caravaggio himself was forgotten almost immediately after his death, many of his paintings were reascribed to his followers, such as The Taking of Christ, which was attributed to Honthorst until 1990. It was only in the 20th century that his importance to the development of Western art was rediscovered, in the 1920s Roberto Longhi once more placed him in the European tradition, Ribera, Vermeer, La Tour and Rembrandt could never have existed without him. And the art of Delacroix, Courbet and Manet would have utterly different. The influential Bernard Berenson stated, With the exception of Michelangelo, at the height of his popularity in Rome during the late 1590s and early 17th century, Caravaggios dramatic new style influenced many of his peers in the Roman art world. The first Caravaggisti included Mario Minniti, Giovanni Baglione, Leonello Spada, in the next generation there were Carlo Saraceni, Bartolomeo Manfredi and Orazio Borgianni. Gentileschi, despite being older, was the only one of these artists to live much beyond 1620. His daughter Artemisia Gentileschi was also close to Caravaggio, and one of the most gifted of the movement, yet in Rome and in Italy it was not Caravaggio, but the influence of Annibale Carracci, blending elements from the High Renaissance and Lombard realism, which ultimately triumphed. In May 1606 after the killing of Ranuccio Tomassoni, Caravaggio fled to Naples with a sentence on his head. While there he completed several commissions, two major ones being the Madonna of the Rosary, and The Seven Works of Mercy. The Caravaggisti movement there ended with an outbreak of plague in 1656, but at the time Naples was a possession of Spain. The Netherlands Institute for Art History lists 128 artists labelled Caravaggisten, in the early 17th century Catholic artists from the Netherlands travelled to Rome as students and were profoundly influenced by the work of Caravaggio. In the following generation the effects of Caravaggio, although attenuated, are to be seen in the work of Vermeer, Rembrandt, Rubens was likely one of the first Flemish artists to be influenced by Caravaggio. During the period 1600-1608, Rubens resided in Italy and he settled in Mantua at the court of Duke Vincenzo I Gonzaga but also spent time in Rome. During his stay in Rome in 1601 he became acquainted with Caravaggio’s work and he later made a copy of Caravagios Entombment of Christ and recommended his patron, the Duke of Mantua, to purchase The Death of the Virgin
8.
Quirinal Palace
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It is located on the Quirinal Hill, the highest of the seven hills of Rome. It has housed thirty Popes, four Kings of Italy and twelve presidents of the Italian Republic, the palace extends for an area of 110,500 square metres and is the ninth-largest palace in the world in terms of area. By way of comparison, the White House in the United States is one-twentieth of its size, the current site of the palace has been in use since Roman times, as excavations in the gardens testify. On this hill, the Romans built temples to several deities, from Flora to Quirinus, during the reign of Constantine the last complex of Roman baths was built here, as the statues of the twins Castor and Pollux taming the horses decorating the fountain in the square testify. The Quirinal, being the highest hill in Rome, was sought after and became a popular spot for the Roman patricians. An example of those are the remains of a villa in the Quirinal gardens, the palace, located on the Via del Quirinale and facing onto the Piazza del Quirinale, was built in 1583 by Pope Gregory XIII as a papal summer residence. On the site, there was already a small villa owned by the Carafa family, the pope commissioned the architect Ottaviano Mascherino to build a palace with porticoed parallel wings and an internal court. To the latter, a tower was added according to a project by Carlo Maderno. Pope Paul V commissioned the completion of the work on the building of the palace. The Palace was also used as the location for papal conclaves in 1823,1829,1831 and it served as a papal residence and housed the central offices responsible for the civil government of the Papal States until 1870. In September 1870, what was left of the Papal States was overthrown, about five months later, in 1871, Rome became the capital of the new Kingdom of Italy. The monarchy was abolished in 1946 and the Palace became the residence and workplace for the Presidents of the Italian Republic. Still, some declined the Colle residence and kept their usual Roman residence, for example, the façade was designed by Domenico Fontana. Its Great Chapel was designed by Carlo Maderno and it contains frescos by Guido Reni, but the most famous fresco is the Blessing Christ by Melozzo da Forlì, placed over the stairs. Its grounds include a set of gardens laid out in the 17th century. The palace, in its totality has 1,200 rooms, within the Quirinals gardens lies the famous water organ built between 1997 and 1999 by Barthélemy Formentelli based on the characteristics of the previous nineteenth century organ. The organ is fed by a waterfall with a jump of 18 meters and has a keyboard of 41 notes with a first short octave. Overall, the Quirinals gardens measure a 4 hectares, under the gardens, through a trap door one can reach the archaeological excavations that have unearthed the remains of the original temple to the god Quirinus and some insulae of the imperial age
9.
Santa Maria dell'Anima
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Santa Maria dellAnima is a Roman Catholic church in central Rome, Italy, just west of the Piazza Navona and near the Santa Maria della Pace church. It was founded during the course of the 14th century by Dutch merchants, in the course of the 15th century, it became the national church of the whole Holy Roman Empire in Rome and henceforth the national church of Germany and hospice of German-speaking people in Rome. According to tradition, the received its name, from the picture of Our Lady which forms its coat of arms. Among the artworks housed inside is the Holy Family by Giulio Romano and it is the resting place of the Dutch Pope Adrian VI as well as of Cardinals William of Enckenvoirt and Andrew of Austria. Santa Maria dellAnima is one of the medieval charity institutions built for pilgrims in Rome. The church found its origin in 1350, when Johannes and Katharina Peters of Dordrecht bought three houses and turned it into a hospice for pilgrims, at the occasion of the Jubilee of 1350. Jan Peters may have been a Dutch merchant or papal soldier and they named the hospice Beatae Mariae Animarum. It was erected on its present site in 1386, the foundation of the hospice was confirmed by the bull of Pope Boniface IX on 9 November 1399, which granted it indulgences. In 1406, it was raised to the rank of an institution and united with a Brotherhood governed by Provisors. On 21 May 1406 Pope Innocent VII in his bull Piae Postulatio declared the hospice exempt from all but papal jurisdiction, in 1418, it was greatly enriched by the legacy of its second founder, Diedrich of Niem. The Popes of the century, with the exception of Pope Sixtus IV. In 1431 a church was built on the place of the hospices chapel, during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries Santa Maria dellAnima became the national and religious centre as well as burial place in Rome of the Holy Roman Empire. Johann Burchard from Strasbourg joined the Confraternity of Santa Maria dellAnima, while he held this office, the decision was made to rebuild the church for the Jubilee of 1500. The present church which owes its Renaissance style to the influence of Bramante, was built by German subscriptions and it stands on the site of the older church, built between 1431 and 1499, and was decorated by the great artists of the period. The church was built in the style of a church that was typical for Northern Europe. Andrea Sansovino was retained as architect, the facade was completed by Giuliano da Sangallo. The new church was consecrated only on 25 November 1542, during the Napoleonic occupation, the church was plundered and the sacristy used as a horse stable. In 1844, the Belgian community moved to the Church of St. Julian of the Flemings, Dutch Catholics retained the Anima as their national church, but after extended conflicts left it in 1939
10.
Louvre
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The Louvre or the Louvre Museum is the worlds largest museum and a historic monument in Paris, France. A central landmark of the city, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the citys 1st arrondissement, approximately 38,000 objects from prehistory to the 21st century are exhibited over an area of 72,735 square metres. The Louvre is the second most visited museum after the Palace Museum in China. The museum is housed in the Louvre Palace, originally built as a fortress in the late 12th century under Philip II, remnants of the fortress are visible in the basement of the museum. Due to the expansion of the city, the fortress eventually lost its defensive function and. The building was extended many times to form the present Louvre Palace, in 1692, the building was occupied by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres and the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, which in 1699 held the first of a series of salons. The Académie remained at the Louvre for 100 years, during the French Revolution, the National Assembly decreed that the Louvre should be used as a museum to display the nations masterpieces. The museum opened on 10 August 1793 with an exhibition of 537 paintings, because of structural problems with the building, the museum was closed in 1796 until 1801. The collection was increased under Napoleon and the museum renamed Musée Napoléon, the collection was further increased during the reigns of Louis XVIII and Charles X, and during the Second French Empire the museum gained 20,000 pieces. Holdings have grown steadily through donations and bequests since the Third Republic, whether this was the first building on that spot is not known, it is possible that Philip modified an existing tower. According to the authoritative Grand Larousse encyclopédique, the name derives from an association with wolf hunting den, in the 7th century, St. Fare, an abbess in Meaux, left part of her Villa called Luvra situated in the region of Paris to a monastery. This territory probably did not correspond exactly to the modern site, the Louvre Palace was altered frequently throughout the Middle Ages. In the 14th century, Charles V converted the building into a residence and in 1546, Francis acquired what would become the nucleus of the Louvres holdings, his acquisitions including Leonardo da Vincis Mona Lisa. After Louis XIV chose Versailles as his residence in 1682, constructions slowed, however, on 14 October 1750, Louis XV agreed and sanctioned a display of 96 pieces from the royal collection, mounted in the Galerie royale de peinture of the Luxembourg Palace. Under Louis XVI, the museum idea became policy. The comte dAngiviller broadened the collection and in 1776 proposed conversion of the Grande Galerie of the Louvre – which contained maps – into the French Museum, many proposals were offered for the Louvres renovation into a museum, however, none was agreed on. Hence the museum remained incomplete until the French Revolution, during the French Revolution the Louvre was transformed into a public museum. In May 1791, the Assembly declared that the Louvre would be a place for bringing together monuments of all the sciences, on 10 August 1792, Louis XVI was imprisoned and the royal collection in the Louvre became national property
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