by Darryl Brooks

Created on: August 14, 2009

The Louvre Museum is one of the most famous and iconic museums in the world. It is the largest national museum in France, and the most visited museum on the planet. The Louvre is located in the first arrondissement or neighborhood of Paris on the Right Bank of the Seine River. The museum consists of over six hundred and fifty square feet of space and contains almost thirty-five thousand pieces of art. The building it is located in, the Louvre Palace, was originally a twelfth century fortress, although the building has been renovated and expanded many times since then.

The Louvre has come a long way from its humble beginnings when it opened at the end of the eighteenth century during the French Revolution with a little more than five hundred paintings. The museum only stayed open a few years until structural problems forced its closure for five years during which the first major renovations occurred. For a short while during Napoleon's reign, the Louvre was renamed the Musee Napoleon.

During the Restoration in the first part of the nineteenth century and the Second Empire in the mid-nineteenth century, the collection of art at the Louvre continued to grow and more money began pouring into renovations and expansions. This included the addition of the famed Venus de Milo under Louis XVIII. Toward the end of the century twenty thousand new pieces were added to the collection and two new galleries were added. Growth and expansion of the museum slowed during and after World War I and during World War II almost all art was removed from the museum and hidden away. These were returned following the end of the war and expansion of the collections continued again.

In addition to the thirty-five thousand works of art, the Louvre contains more than three hundred eighty thousand objects, including archaeological finds. The current museum is a huge rectangle and consists of three wings and the central visitor's center which contains the famous Louvre Pyramid. The museum averages fifteen thousand visitors a day and has a staff of two thousand employees. If possible, the museum achieved even greater fame by being the centerpiece of the book and movie, The DaVinci Code. The museum was paid two and a half million dollars to allow filming in the galleries.

The Louvre is located in the first arrondissement adjacent to the Palais-Royal-Musee du Louvre Metro station. There is also an underground parking garage. The museum is open from nine to six ever day except

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