Luxembourg Palace and gardens

The palace was built for Marie de Médicis in the XVII century more exactly in the year 1615. Her architect was Salomon de Brosse. Nowadays is where the French Senate meets.

The Luxembourg palace served as a high school residence more than as a palace. Its architecture corresponds to the typical characteristics of other French palaces such as the Vernuil in which Salomon Brosse was also involved. It has a square garden, the Honour Court, the reception with a dome, the Tournon dome and many pavilions all along the residence. It was used in 1720 to accommodate the Widow Queen of Spain, Luisa Isabel de Orléans, daughter of the Orleans Duke.

The palace is the result of inspiration from the Pitti palace in Florence, Italy. Ordered by Maria de Médecis that bore enough of the Louvre she wishes to find a Florentine spirit and the sweetness of it; especially with the use of rocks for the façade instead of this mixture between bricks and rocks typical for example of the Versalles Chateau.

The right part of the palace was only for the queen and the left for Louis XIII. A number of pictures were asked to Rubens for each of their apartments. But only the one for María de Médecis was finished, 13 paintings were exposed in the Louvre saloon. The gardens of the palace were open to the public and constitute one of the main tree areas of Paris. They are considered the most beautiful of the country. The gardeners make sure to keep the beautifulness of these gardens throughout all the seasons of the year.

The entry of the Palace is at the north and the facade is orientated to the south right over the Luxembourg gardens. This garden located in the centre is in the most popular of Paris. It is part of the 6th arrondissement in the Latin Quarter only 100 meters away from the Sorbonne and the Pantheón. It has a neoclassical style with streets all around the central pond.

Thanks to the immense wealth of its family, Maria de Médecis (also owner of a bank with branches all over Europe) bought the lands where there was a convent (not easy to remove) to expand the gardens. However, the maximum extent of them was not until 1792.

Haussman, who reconstructed the whole city adding big avenues and destroying complete neighbourhoods, divided the park in several points in order to construct his boulevards although neighbourhoods didn’t agree (the garden had open a few times for the public).

The palace and the gardens too suffered the vicissitudes of the owners and they were abandoned several times. The palace was transformed in prison when the French Revolution begun. During the Second World War German people used it as an encampment and they built a bunker in the garden.

From the beginnings of the XXI century the French senate had organized expositions in the garden: modern sculptures and photos mainly. In 2004 the palace was parto f the festivities of the Chinese year with gigantic pictures of this country. One of the motivations was to improve the image of the Senate that is not chosen democratically and which mission is misunderstood by citizens.

The park has tennis courts, places to play petanque and ponies for children.
From the original garden there is only one monument left: the Maria de Medicis font that actually was also amputated and expanded on one side.