VERSAILLES - From Its Origins to the Present Day

Versailles, estate, history, city and territory: The essential reference!

This new project on Versailles aims to take up the torch from Pierre Verlet's monograph, Le Château de Versailles, published by Fayard in 1961 and reissued in a new edition in 1985. This model of scholarship has established itself as the definitive reference on the Ancien Régime residence, analysed in its every detail. Verlet's text thus allows the reader to retrace the stages in the construction of Versailles and its fitting-out, while also providing useful clarifications on the use of the spaces and their evolution up to the Revolution. Dense in content, it is illustrated with floor plans enabling the reader to navigate the château.

Yet since 1985, the date of a landmark symposium devoted entirely to Versailles, the body of scholarship on the subject has grown to such a degree that it would not be unreasonable to speak of "versaillologie" to describe this science of the place and its history, at the crossroads of political history, art history — architecture, painting, sculpture, engraving, garden design, music, the decorative arts —, literary history, history of science, institutional history, social history, and history of mentalities.

Alexandre Maral, who has devoted his professional life to Versailles and is now its foremost specialist, has decided to publish a new monograph modelled on that of Pierre Verlet. The aim is to offer the curious reader the essential of what can be known about the history of the place. That said, the scope of this new work has been extended in two directions: in time, by genuinely taking into account the period prior to Louis XIV (long neglected, this period is nonetheless fundamental for understanding the significance of the Versailles site, which is part of a long history) and by treating the period after 1789 (up to 2023); in space, by including the estate, the town, and the surrounding territory.

Beyond the fact that knowledge of the subject has been enriched by numerous studies since 1985, the approach deserved to be renewed and to integrate reflections on Versailles as an instrument of government and a concentrate of civilisation. The definitive synthesis, combining erudition and reading pleasure in a carefully produced, bound and richly illustrated edition.