Luxembourg Gardens

Marie de Medici commissioned the palace and its gardens from 1612, wanting something that recalled the Boboli gardens of her childhood in Florence, and the result is a hybrid: a formal French parterre around an octagonal basin, and a looser wooded English section, with the Medici Fountain in a shaded alley at the eastern edge. The palace now houses the French Senate. What makes the gardens work is use: children sail model boats on the basin with sticks, chess and tennis are played daily, the metal chairs can be dragged anywhere, and an orchard grows heritage apple and pear varieties in the southwest corner.

History

In 1611 Marie de Medici, widow of Henry IV, decided to build a palace recalling the Pitti Palace of her native Florence, bought the Hôtel du Luxembourg and commissioned Salomon de Brosse; in 1612 she had 2,000 elms planted, and Tommaso Francini laid out terraces and parterres around a basin and built the Medici Fountain as a grotto, in a garden of just eight hectares. In 1630 she enlarged it to thirty hectares under Jacques Boyceau, who created formal parterres and the octagonal basin with its view towards the present Observatory. Later neglected, the garden lost its eastern part to building in 1780, but after the Revolution the Directory enlarged it to forty hectares with land taken from the Carthusians, and Jean-François Chalgrin restored it, keeping their nursery garden and vines; from the July Monarchy it filled with statues, among them the queens of France and a small model of Bartholdi's Statue of Liberty, and in 1865 a new street cut off about seven hectares. The 23-hectare garden now belongs to the French Senate (Wikipedia, Jardin du Luxembourg).

Highlights

• The octagonal basin - model sailboats pushed with sticks by children.
• The Medici Fountain - a shaded Italianate fountain in a side alley.
• The movable chairs - green metal seats dragged wherever people want them.
• The orchard and apiary - heritage fruit varieties and beehives in the corner.

When to go

April to October, when the chestnuts are in leaf and the chairs fill; the gardens close at dusk, with the closing time shifting through the year and whistles used to clear them.

Things to know

Lawns are mostly off limits and sitting on the grass is not generally allowed. The gardens close at sunset, earlier than visitors expect in winter. Toilets are limited and charged.

Nearby

The Pantheon lies east; Saint-Germain is north.

Key facts