Louvre Museum

In the Middle Ages, the area now known as the Louvre museum was built as a fortress to protect Paris. Between 1364 and 1380, King Charles V transformed the fortress into a castle. The castle was later demolished and rebuilt as a palace for France's kings and queens until it became a residence for artists in the 1700s. These artists, along with King Louis XVI, transformed this space into a museum to showcase royal art collections. Opening in 1793 with 537 paintings, the Louvre now houses a collection of 380,000 objects that include paintings, sculptures, drawings, and archaeological finds. The museum displays 35,000 works of art across eight curatorial departments and spanning from prehistory to the 19th century. Included in the Louvre's vast and storied collection are the Winged Victory of Samothrace, Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, and Alexndros of Antioch's Venus de Milo.