PilgrimstaysThe Louvre is the most visited museum in the world, with 8.7 million visitors in 2024. Its collection of over 550,000 works spans from 7,000 BC to the mid-19th century and contains some of the most consequential works of Western Christian art — the Winged Victory of Samothrace, the Venus de Milo, Raphael's La Belle Jardinière, Veronese's enormous Wedding at Cana, Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People, and Leonardo da Vinci's Virgin of the Rocks. For Christian pilgrims and art pilgrims, the Louvre's Denon Wing offers one of the great concentrations of Renaissance religious art in the world: the Italian painting gallery contains Mantegna's St Sebastian, Perugino's Apollo and Marsyas, Raphael's Holy Family, Titian's Man with a Glove, and in the Grande Galerie running the full length of the wing, hundreds of Italian, French, and Flemish works from the 13th to the 17th centuries. The Louvre is housed in a former royal palace that itself constitutes a work of art: the 16th and 17th-century Cour Carrée, the grand apartments, the medieval foundations of the original 12th-century fortress (visible in the basement), and I.M. Pei's 1989 glass pyramid, which resolved a century of architectural controversy and became one of Paris's most beloved modern additions. In an era when fewer Europeans worship in churches, the Louvre functions as a secular place of pilgrimage — where people make long journeys to stand before images of the sacred.
The world's most visited museum — 8.7 million visitors in 2024 Contains Leonardo da
Vinci's Mona Lisa, the most famous painting in the world The Grande Galerie of
Italian paintings is arguably the greatest single room of religious art in the world
Veronese's Wedding at Cana, 10 metres wide, faces the Mona Lisa across the same
room I.M. Pei's 1989 glass pyramid resolved decades of architectural debate and became a
Denon Wing, First Floor The 460-metre Grande Galerie is the longest gallery in the Louvre and the heart of its Italian collection: Leonardo, Raphael, Titian, Caravaggio, Veronese, and hundreds of others. For Christian pilgrims, this is the most important single space — a sustained encounter with the sacred represented in paint across four centuries. Budget 45 minutes minimum.
10 metres wide, 6.7 metres tall — faces the Mona Lisa across Room 711. It depicts Christ's first miracle at Cana, with 130 figures in a 16th-century Venetian setting. Ignored by the crowds fixating on the opposite wall, it is the greater painting.
Denon Wing, Rooms 710-711 The most concentrated collection of Leonardo anywhere in the world: Virgin of the Rocks, St John the Baptist, Annunciation, La Belle Ferronnière, and of course the Mona Lisa. Seeing them together communicates what no reproduction can: the quality of Leonardo's seeing.
Exterior courtyard [OUTDOOR] The 16th-17th-century royal palace facade surrounding the eastern courtyard is one of the finest architectural spaces in Paris. At dawn before the museum opens, when the courtyard is empty and the stone glows pale gold, it is overwhelming.
is written on these walls.
The Mona Lisa is smaller than most people expect. The crowd in front of her is large, noisy, and mostly composed of people photographing her on their phones. And yet she is still there when they leave — the same face, the same ambiguous smile, the same eyes that seem to follow whoever stands before them. Five hundred years of people have stood where you are standing. This is what the secular world now does with sacred art: it makes pilgrimage to it, photographs it, and goes home changed in ways it cannot explain.
“I was filled with delight day after day, rejoicing before him always.”
Read in full on Bible Gateway →The Louvre is the most visited museum in the world, with 8.7 million visitors in 2024. Its collection of over 550,000 works spans from 7,000 BC to the mid-19th century and contains some of the most consequential works of Western Christian art — the Winged Victory of Samothrace, the Venus de Milo, Raphael’s La Belle Jardinière, Veronese’s enormous Wedding at Cana, Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People, and Leonardo da Vinci’s Virgin of the Rocks.
For Christian pilgrims and art pilgrims, the Louvre’s Denon Wing offers one of the great concentrations of Renaissance religious art in the world: the Italian painting gallery contains Mantegna’s St Sebastian, Perugino’s Apollo and Marsyas, Raphael’s Holy Family, Titian’s Man with a Glove, and in the Grande Galerie running the full length of the wing, hundreds of Italian, French and Flemish works from the 13th to the 17th centuries.
The Louvre is housed in a former royal palace that itself constitutes a work of art: the 16th- and 17th-century Cour Carrée, the grand apartments, the medieval foundations of the original 12th-century fortress (visible in the basement), and I.M. Pei’s 1989 glass pyramid, which resolved a century of architectural controversy and became one of Paris’s most beloved modern additions. In an era when fewer Europeans worship in churches, the Louvre functions as a secular place of pilgrimage — where people make long journeys to stand before images of the sacred.
