The Palace of Versailles

The Palace of Versailles is one of the greatest, most interesting, and beautiful pieces of art in history. The patron of the magnificent building is Louis XIV, a King of France in the Baroque period (17th century). Inside the Palace, many artistic decisions were made, that reflected Louis’ wishes. Some of these wishes include, but are not limited to, an open courtyard for guests and nobles to walk around and talk, all while viewing the amazing gardens (created by and earth-work specialist named Mansart).

Another great decision was the pure size of the structure. The palace was made for large groups of people, thus making it huge. The palace is 17 acres large, has 700 rooms, and usually held anywhere from 10,000-20,000 people at once. A great question behind the mysterious Palace is why it was created in Versailles, rather than in the capital city of Paris. For the most part, Louis claimed he was a “Divine Ruler,” meaning his power and kingship came from God himself.

With this in his head, Louis thought his decisions were final, thus making him not want to listen to anyone. As large groups of protesters (many of which were women pleading for food, due to starvation and heavy prices) formed in Paris, Louis had enough and moved. He moved to the secluded, out of the way, city, named Versailles. Here, Louis would live out the rest of his reign, where he would eventually die and be succeeded by Louis XV. Overall, The Palace of Versailles is one of the most detailed, beautiful, and expensive buildings in the world. In today’s dollar, it would be counted around a little over 3 Billion dollars in USD.

Although this price is outrageous and nearly put France bankrupt, it lead to a beautiful building being created, that has been studied, modeled, and stunned upon, for hundreds of years. The Palace of Versailles is one of the greatest buildings in history, and shows the true meaning behind art.