Palace of Versailles

About this place

Versailles became the principal setting of the French court and government under Louis XIV, with the monarchy established there from 1682. Its ceremonial rooms, courtyards and formal gardens were designed to project royal authority on an extraordinary scale. Later rulers continued to inhabit and reshape the estate until the upheaval of the French Revolution. Explore the relationship between buildings and landscape rather than treating the palace as a series of isolated rooms. The ordered views and repeated architectural forms show how an entire environment could express a political ideal.