With 3D scale models, music, and video, Google’s Versailles 3D
brings the best of 21st century web arts to 18th century art
history. The palace was built by Louis XIV, the “Sun King,” who
exemplified all of the authoritarian excesses of the French
monarchy. Fortunately for posterity, he was also a patron of the
arts, to whom we owe much of the work of Moliere, Racine and
painters such as Charles Le Brun. And then there is his
architectural legacy, the palace of Versailles, which started
out as a humble hunting lodge, built by his father Louis XIII in
1624. In the next several decades, father, then son,
commissioned the elaborate set of buildings that constitute
Europe’s largest chateau and the seat of French government from
Louis XIV’s ascension until the Revolution of 1789. If you’re
thinking of visiting, the official chateau de Versailles website
has slideshows of grounds and galleries, a boutique, and some
worthwhile interactive features. But Google, as usual, has tried
to outdo its competition, this time