The Panthéon is a neo-classical style mausoleum located in the 5th arrondissement of Paris (France). In the heart of the Latin Quarter, on the Sainte-Geneviève mountain, it is in the center of the Place du Panthéon and surrounded in particular by the town hall of the 5th arrondissement, the Henri-IV high school, the Saint-Étienne-du-Mont church. The Soufflot Rue gives it a perspective to the Luxembourg Garden.
The edifice was built between 1758 and 1790, from designs by Jacques-Germain Soufflot, at the behest of King Louis XV of France; the king intended it as a church dedicated to Saint Genevieve, Paris’s patron saint, whose relics were to be housed in the church. Neither Soufflot nor Louis XV lived to see the church completed.
By the time the construction was finished, the French Revolution had started; the National Constituent Assembly voted in 1791 to transform the Church of Saint Genevieve into a mausoleum for the remains of distinguished French citizens, modelled on the Pantheon in Rome which had been used in this way since the 17th century.
The first panthéonisé was Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau, although his remains were removed from the building a few years later.
The Panthéon was twice restored to church usage in the course of the 19th century—although Soufflot’s remains were transferred inside it in 1829—until the French Third Republic finally decreed the building’s exclusive use as a mausoleum in 1881.
The placement of Victor Hugo’s remains in the crypt in 1885 was its first entombment in over 50 years.
The successive changes in the Panthéon’s purpose resulted in modifications of the pedimental sculptures and the capping of the dome by a cross or a flag; some of the originally existing windows were blocked up with masonry in order to give the interior a darker and more funereal atmosphere, which compromised somewhat Soufflot’s initial attempt at combining the lightness and brightness of the Gothic cathedral with classical principles.
The architecture of the Panthéon is an early example of Neoclassicism, surmounted by a dome that owes some of its character to Bramante’s Tempietto. The Pantheon is a building 110 m long and 84 m wide.
Photo: Enzo Rodrigues
In 1851, Léon Foucault conducted a demonstration of diurnal motion at the Panthéon by suspending a pendulum from the ceiling, a copy of which is still visible today. As of December 2021 the remains of 81 people (75 men and six women) had been transferred to the Panthéon. More than half of all the panthéonisations were made under Napoleon’s rule during the First Empire.
Address: Pl. du Panthéon, 75005 Paris, France.
Working hours:
Friday 10 AM–6 PM
Saturday 10 AM–6 PM
Sunday 10 AM–6 PM
Monday 10 AM–6 PM
Tuesday 10 AM–6 PM
Wednesday 10 AM–6 PM
Thursday 10 AM–6 PM
Phone: +33 1 44 32 18 00
This place is served by the Cardinal Lemoine and Place Monge metro stations, by the Luxembourg station of RER line B and by the RATP bus lines: 21, 24, 27, 38, 75, 84 and 89.
Main facts
Burials: Simone Veil, Marie Curie, Victor Hugo, Jean Moulin, MORE
Architects: Jacques-Germain Soufflot, Jean-Baptiste Rondelet
Construction started: 1764
Opened: 1790
Function: Monument
Height: 83 m.
Photo: Enzo Rodrigues
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