Pantheon, Paris — Przewodnik dla zwiedzających i co robić w okolicy

The Pantheon is a neoclassical monument in the Latin Quarter, originally built as a church but transformed during the French Revolution into a secular mausoleum honouring France's greatest citizens.

The building was commissioned by King Louis XV in 1744 as a church dedicated to Saint Genevieve, the patron saint of Paris, after he recovered from a serious illness. Designed by Jacques-Germain Soufflot and completed in 1790, just as the Revolution began, it was immediately repurposed.

The Pantheon's most famous residents rest in the crypt. Voltaire and Rousseau were among the first to be interred. Victor Hugo was buried here in 1885 after a state funeral attended by 2 million people. Emile Zola, Louis Braille, Marie Curie (the first woman honoured here, in 1995), and Alexandre Dumas have all been "pantheonized."

The building has a scientific claim to fame too. In 1851, physicist Leon Foucault hung a 67-metre pendulum from the dome to demonstrate the rotation of the Earth. A replica of Foucault's Pendulum still swings beneath the dome today.

The dome itself, 83 metres high, offers panoramic views over Paris from the colonnade gallery.

If you're on a Questo quest through the Latin Quarter, the Pantheon is a stop where the greatest minds of France are honoured beneath a pendulum that proved the Earth moves.