History Museum sights in Paris
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Musée National du Moyen Âge
The National Museum of the Middle Ages occupies both a frigidarium (cooling room), which holds remains of Gallo-Roman thermes (baths) dating from around AD 200, and the 15th-century Hôtel des Abbés de Cluny, Paris’ finest example of medieval civil architecture. Inside, spectacular displays include statuary, illuminated manuscripts, weapons, furnishings and objets d’art made of gold, ivory and enamel. But nothing compares with La Dame à la Licorne (The Lady with the Unicorn), a sublime series of late-15th-century tapestries from the southern Netherlands.
Small gardens northeast of the museum, including the Jardin Céleste (Heavenly Garden) and the Jardin d’Amour…
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B
Musée National d’Histoire Naturelle
France’s National Museum of Natural History within the Jardin des Plantes incorporates the Galerie de Minéralogie et de Géologie (closed for renovation at the time of writing); the Galerie d’Anatomie Comparée et de Paléontologie, covering anatomy and fossils; and the topical Grande Galerie de l'Évolution, highlighting humanity’s effect on the planet’s ecosystems.
The National Museum of Natural History was created in 1793 and became a site of significant scientific research in the 19th century. Of its three museums, the Grande Galerie de l’Évolution is a particular winner if you’re travelling with kids: life-sized elephants, tigers and rhinos play safari and…
reviewed
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C
Musée de l’Histoire de France
Paris’ French History museum, inside the early 18th-century Hôtel de Rohan-Soubise, contains antique furniture, 18th-century paintings and documents – everything from medieval incunabula and letters written by Joan of Arc to the wills of Louis XIV and Napoleon. The ceiling and walls of the interior are extravagantly painted and gilded in the rococo style.
Look out for the Cabinet des Singes, a room filled with frescoes of playful, cheeky monkeys painted by Christophe Huet between 1749 and 1752. France’s National Archives are housed in the Soubise wing of the same building.
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D
Musée de Montmartre
The Montmartre Museum displays paintings, lithographs and documents mostly relating to the area’s rebellious and bohemian past. It’s located in one of the oldest houses in Montmartre, a 17th-century manor home where over a dozen artists, including Renoir and Utrillo, once lived. There’s an excellent bookshop here that sells small bottles of the wine produced from grapes grown in the Clos Montmartre.
Although it is undergoing significant renovations, the museum should remain open.
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E
Musée Carnavalet
This enormous museum, subtitled Histoire de Paris (History of Paris), is housed in two hôtels particuliers: the mid-16th-century Renaissance-style Hôtel Carnavalet and the late-17th-century Hôtel Le Peletier de St-Fargeau.
Displays chart the history of Paris from the Gallo-Roman period to modern times on the 1st floor and fill more than 100 rooms. Some of the nation’s most important documents, paintings and other objects from the French Revolution are here; so are Georges Fouquet’s stunning art nouveau jewellery shop from the rue Royale and Marcel Proust’s cork-lined bedroom from his apartment on bd Haussmann, where he wrote most of the 7350-page literary cycle À…
reviewed