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When Louis suffered from a mysterious illness in 1744 he vowed to build a church dedicated to Sainte-Geneviève if he would survive. After he recovered, he entrusted the Marquis of Marigny with the task of replacing the ruined 6th century basilica, Abbey Sainte-Geneviève. Foundations were laid in 1758, but due to financial difficulties, it wasn't completed until 1789-after Soufflot's death, by his pupil Jean-Baptiste Rondelet. In the midst of the French Revolution, the Constituent Assembly of the Revolution decided by decree to transform the church into a mausoleum to accommodate the remains of the great men of France and building was adapted by architect Quatremère de Quincy. In 1806, the building was turned into a church again, but since 1885 it has served civically as a "Temple of Fame." In 1851 physicist Léon Foucault famously demonstrated the rotation of the Earth by constructing the 67-meterFoucault's pendulum beneath the central dome.
The Panthéon is designed in a Greek-cross plan, 110-meters long and 85-meters wide, with a massive portico of Corinthian columns, modeled on the Pantehon in Rome, surmounted by a small dome that reaches a height of 83-meters. The dome features three superimposed shells, similar to the St. Paul's Cathedral in London.
The vast crypt covers the whole surface of the building, Among those buried in its necropolis are Voltaire, Rousseau, Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Louis Braile, Jean Jaurès, Marie Curie, Emile Zola, and Soufflot.
Wikipedia Article
The Panthéon (Latin: Pantheon, from Greek Πάνθειον meaning "Every god") is a building in the Latin Quarter in Paris. It was originally built as a church dedicated to St. Genevieve and to house the reliquary châsse containing her relics but, after many changes, now functions as a secular mausoleum containing the remains of distinguished French citizens. It is an early example of neoclassicism, with a façade modeled on the Pantheon in Rome, surmounted by a dome that owes some of its character to Bramante's "Tempietto". Located in the 5th arrondissement on the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève, the Panthéon looks out over all of Paris. Designer Jacques-Germain Soufflot had the intention of combining the lightness and brightness of the gothic cathedral with classical principles, but its role as a mausoleum required the great Gothic windows to be blocked.
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The 5th arrondissement of Paris is one of the 20 arrondissements (administrative districts) of the capital city of France.
Situated on the left bank of the River Seine, it is one of the central arrondissements of the capital. The arrondissement is notable for being the location of the Quartier Latin, a district dominated by universities, colleges, and prestigious high schools.
The 5th arrondissement is also one of the oldest districts of the city, dating back to ancient times. Traces of the area's past survive in such sites as the Arènes de Lutèce, a Roman amphitheatre, and the Thermes de Cluny, a Roman thermae.
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La Rive Gauche (French pronunciation: [la ʁiv ɡoʃ], The Left Bank) is the southern bank of the river Seine in Paris. Here the river flows roughly westward, cutting the city in two: looking downstream, the southern bank is to the left, and the northern bank (or Rive Droite) is to the right.
"Rive Gauche" or "Left Bank" generally refers to the Paris of an earlier era; the Paris of artists, writers and philosophers, including Pablo Picasso, Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine, Henri Matisse, Jean-Paul Sartre, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and dozens of other members of the great artistic community at Montparnasse. The phrase implies a sense of bohemianism and creativity. Some of its famous streets are the Boulevard Saint-Germain, the Boulevard Saint-Michel and the Rue de Rennes.
The Latin Quarter is a Left Bank area in the 5th arrondissement, so named because originally Latin was widely spoken by students in the vicinity of the University of Paris.
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