Chateau de Versailles

Chateau de Versailles is an ancient royal residence. it's considered like one of most beautyful castle of the world.

Maybe it's one of most visitated place from the tourists in the world. The Chateau de Versailles isn't only a masterpiece of architecture and hydraulics engineering for its gardens and fountains, but is a symbol of reference in a contoverial age of the French monarchy history. In fact its building shows us the display of wealth in the age of Luigi XIV before decay and french revolution.

Already out of the building we ca see the way of display of wealth, in fact in the entrance there is a majestic golden railing. In the castle tourist can visit the rooms of the royal family components which are still furnished, and here we can find a lot of art works and paintings like the famous painting "Coronation of Napoleon" which take up all the wall of the biggest room.
Versailles garden is a majestic work of art, and tourists can visit it walking or on a carriage beacause the path is very long.

Palace of Versailles

At the beginning, Palace of Versailles was just a hunting place built for Louis XIII in case that he had gone to Versailles. But, with Louis XIV (Sun King), Versailles became symbol of power and military victories. King Louis chose Palace of Versailles to go away from the capital and citizens that were hard to lead. Palace of Versailles is one of the greatest and most sumptuous royal Palaces of the past and it is part of the UNESCO World Heritage.

Before describing the beauties of the Palace, let’s start with a little bit of history.

When King Louis XIV started to reign he was only 13 years old and he didn’t find a Palace that satisfied his personal tastes. As he wanted to escape from the uncomfortable and chaotic city life, he decided to settle in different French areas, without finding a castle that satisfied him.
When he visited Versailles for the first time, he fell in love at first sight. It was the newest and most modern castle he had ever seen and he decided to build an extension. He commissioned Louis Le Vau to rebuild buildings and others artists had the task to take care of the apartment’s decoration.
At that time Versailles was only designed to have parties in the garden, while the Royal Palace was still the Louvre.
Later, Le Vau started to build the Enveloppe, that was a second building that enclosed the first one. The King and Queen’s apartments were built opposable divided by a large terrace.
The King Louis’s desire has been realized: the new and the old castles coexisted side by side.
The new Palace was a building built completely with stones, as the Italian style taught, but the ornamentation and the proportions made it a beautiful French work of art.
When King Louis was 44, he moved permanently to Versailles. It became his official residence, though the works weren’t ended.
Palace of Versailles was a reference model for the others European courts and a model of the French power.

Versailles saw both the height and the downfall of the Bourbon France.
In Versailles the General States were held in 1789. After that, King Louis and his court were compelled to move to Paris and, after the monarchy downfall, Versailles was also sacked.
The Palace never came back to his past glory, not even when Napoleon decided to make it an Imperial Palace.
Today, it is a National Palace at the French Republic President’s disposal.
In 1978 the Palace was victim of an attack that damages dozens of royal rooms.
After the 1875 many rooms have been designed for the Parliament, but in 2005 it was proposed to give back that rooms to the public function of Museum and National Monument, but the Senate rejected the proposal. 

Apartments

The rooms are profusely decorated and they have still the original furniture, some of them made in silver.
There is a very strong symbology in the whole Castle. The rooms are titled as the planets and turn around the “Salon d’Apollon” (Sun’s God) that was the Throne’s Room.
At the first floor there are the King and Queen’s apartments. Towards the garden you can overlook the rooms where court’s life took place, including the beautiful Hall of Mirrors. Starting from the “Salon de Ercole”, each room is dedicated to a deity of Olympus.
On the ground floor there are the apartments of the Dauphin, a library and a room where he studied. 
In the south wing there are the nobility’s apartments, that have been replaced with the Museum of the History of France, the bigger historical museum of the world.
In the end, in the north wing there are the Opera and the Royal Chapel. 

Hall of Mirrors

At the King Louis’s time, big galleries in Imperial Palaces were very fashionable, and he wanted to build one also in Versailles. In 1684 the build of the Mirror Gallery ended; it symbolized the absolute monarchy’s power.
Charles Le Brun was commissioned to the decoration of the Gallery and he opted for objects mainly in Rococo’s style.
At that time, mirrors were a very rare object and they were very expensive; in the Palace there are 17 mirrors, each one in front of a window of the room. In the coffer ceiling there are paintings of the Louis XIV’s victories against Spain and Holland. 

The "grand" and the "petit" Trianon

When the Palace reaches 20.000 inhabitants, the King ordered the building of a residence nearby the Castle: the Grand Trianon, a building of pink and green marble, homage to the garden’s art. Many artist, specialized in botany, took care of the paintings. The garden counted 96.000 flowers and two millions vases.
Moreover Louis XV ordered the building of the Petit Trianon to meet secretly his courtesan Madame de Pompadour, and then it became the favorite place of Marie Antoinette.

The park and the garden

It is almost impossible to believe that originally the Versailles’s gardens were evil-smelling ponds.
Later, the landscape architect Le Notre re-designed the garden in a classic style, with alleys, flower beds, sheets of water, and fountains’ game. Ships made in Venice sailed in the huge Grand Canal.
All the great sculptors of the time (as Bernini) took part in the creation of the garden’s sculptures, full of mythological symbols. 

Some curiosity

The Palace is made up of three principal buildings (Versailles, the “Grand Trianon” and the “Petit Trianon”) and many others little buildings located in the city.
Versailles has 700 rooms, 215 windows, 352 fireplace, 67 stairs and 483 mirrors.
Total area of the Palace counts 67.121 m², but only 50.000 m² are open to public.
The park counts 800 hectares, made both of wood and garden.
A reorganization program was instituted in 2003 and counts three principal objectives: to provide the stability, to continue the renovation works and to find new places to receive tourists.  

Sabrina Scotto Rosato