L'Institut de France - Former Collège des Quatre-Nations (Paris)
N 48° 51.443 E 002° 20.221
31U E 451369 N 5411813
The monumental Palais de L'Institut de France (former building of Collège des Quatre-Nations) belongs among the most precious examples of French Baroque architecture and it's a masterpiece of famous architect Louis Le Vau...
Waymark Code: WM6KZJ
Location: Île-de-France, France
Date Posted: 06/18/2009
Views: 58
The Académie Française, founded by Cardinal Richelieu in 1635 to foster the French language, is the oldest of the five learned academies of the Institut de France which have their headquarters in the Palais de l'Institut de France. The members of the Academy, the "quarante Immortels", who are appointed for life, decide whether a word should be admitted into their authoritative Dictionnaire de la Langue Française and thus officially recognized as a French word.
The other academies carry out and promote research in the fields of classical history and archaeology (Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, founded 1664), the natural sciences (Académie des Sciences, 1666), the humanities, law and the social sciences (Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques, 1832) and art (Académie des Beaux-Arts, 1816).
Cardinal Mazarin, dying in 1661, bequeathed money for the foundation of a college to take 15 young nobles from France's new provinces of Artois, Alsace, Piedmont and Roussillon. This Collège des Quatre-Nations, which continued in existence until 1790, was housed in 1691 in a new building, with a chapel and a library, designed by Louis Le Vau. In 1805 Napoleon transferred the five academies, which since 1795 had been brought together in the Institut de France, from the Louvre to the College.
The Baroque Palais de l'Institut de France was designed as a counterpart on the left bank of the Seine to the Cour Carrée of the Louvre on the right bank. This accounts for its unexpected size (for only 60 students) and its imposing architecture, which shows the characteristic features of classical French Baroque - the emphasis given to the ends of the main front by the two pavilions (projecting blocks with high-pitched roofs), the alignment of the facade and the drum supporting the dome and the closely set columns. A particular feature is the semicircular facade, with a six-column portico behind which is the dome of what was originally the chapel.
The chapel was converted into the large council chamber in which the academies and the Institute as a whole meet in plenary session. Here too the academies elect new members to fill vacancies caused by death and formally admit the new members.