Louvre Palace

The Louvre Palace, often referred to simply as the Louvre, is an iconic French palace located on the Right Bank of the Seine in Paris, occupying a vast expanse of land between the Tuileries Gardens and the church of Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois. Originally a defensive castle, it has served several government-related functions in the past, including intermittently as a royal residence between the 14th and 18th centuries. It is now mostly used by the Louvre Museum, which first opened there in 1793.

While this area along the Seine had been inhabited for thousands of years, the Louvre's history starts around 1190 with its first construction as the Louvre Castle defending the western front of the Wall of Philip II Augustus, the then new city-wall of Paris. The Louvre's oldest section still standing above ground, its palatial Lescot Wing, dates from the late 1540s, when Francis I started the replacement of the greatly expanded medieval castle with a new design inspired by classical antiquity and…