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| © Musée du Louvre / I. M. Pei / C. Trochu |
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| Author(s) |
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Jacques Le Roux
National lecturer |
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Opening days: Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday
Duration: 1 hr. 30 mins.
 
Visit the Louvre in the footsteps of the heroes of the novel and the movie The Da Vinci Code, exploring the places, works, and themes at the heart of the story.
Forty years after the French television series Belphégor, the Musée du Louvre and its collections have once again become the setting for, and the protagonists in, a rich work of fiction following the publication in 2003 of the novel The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown and the release in 2006 of the movie, filmed in part in the museum’s galleries by the director Ron Howard. The trail that we have created for you provides an amusing tour of the museum in the footsteps of the “symbologist” Robert Langdon and the cryptologist Sophie Neveu, the main characters of The Da Vinci Code. Without taking sides either for or against The Da Vinci Code, we will evaluate some of the key themes and rectify some of the exaggerations. Although the selection of things to see in the trail will no doubt be obvious to those who have read the book or seen the movie, it should enable everyone to see the Louvre in a new and amusing light, providing both a historical and literary perspective.
The trail begins in the Hall Napoléon, which is located under the Pyramid. At the beginning of The Da Vinci Code, Robert Langdon, like the museum’s seven million visitors each year, enters the Louvre through the Pyramid, which was inaugurated in 1989. The figure of 666 panes of glass given for the Pyramid is incorrect: it is the repetition of a rumor that was spread in the mid-1980s by people opposed to its construction, 666 being the number of the beast in the Book of Revelation. In reality, the Pyramid is made up of 673 diamond-shaped and triangular panes of glass, excluding the doors.
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From the Hall Napoléon, head for the Denon escalators. All the events relating to the Louvre in The Da Vinci Code take place in the Denon wing (named after Dominique-Vivant Denon, the museum’s first director between 1802 and 1815). Take the first escalator and turn left before the second escalator. Go up the staircase leading to the gallery of pre-Classical Greek art (room 1) and continue almost to the end of the room. You will see a large column statue.
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