The Palace of the Sun: The Louvre of Louis XIV

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.