La Sorbonne: Robert de Sorbon's College and the Cardinal's Chapel
Why is it significant?
Stand in the little square with its fountains and café tables and look at the dome at the end, grey and solemn above a Roman temple front. Behind it stretches the Sorbonne, a name that for most of the world simply means the University of Paris. It began very modestly.
Key Facts
| Place | La Sorbonne: Robert de Sorbon's College and the Cardinal's Chapel |
|---|---|
| Address | Place de la Sorbonne, 75005 Paris, France |
| Geo Coordinates | 48.84840, 2.34320 |
| Part of Walk | Students, Saints and Gladiators: Paris's Latin Quarter from the Sorbonne to the Panthéon |
| Generated | Generated |
Stand in the little square with its fountains and café tables and look at the dome at the end, grey and solemn above a Roman temple front. Behind it stretches the Sorbonne, a name that for most of the world simply means the University of Paris.
It began very modestly. In 1257 a priest called Robert de Sorbon, chaplain to King Louis the Ninth, founded a college where poor students of theology could live and study without paying. He came from a village in the Ardennes, and his name ended up on the most prestigious academic brand in Europe. In 1470, three German printers set up a press inside the college, and the first book ever printed in France came off it here.
Its theologians were powerful, and not always on the right side. The University of Paris backed the trial that condemned Joan of Arc in 1431, and for centuries the Sorbonne's doctors acted as censors of books they considered dangerous. The dome in front of you belongs to the chapel rebuilt by Cardinal Richelieu, who was the college's protector. His marble tomb is inside. During the Revolution it was broken open, and his embalmed head was carried off by a looter. It passed from hand to hand for decades before it was finally laid back in the tomb.
In 1906 the Sorbonne gave its first lecture by a woman professor: Marie Curie, taking over the chair of her husband Pierre, who had just been killed by a horse-drawn cart. Hold on to her name, she will be waiting for you at the next stop. Across Rue Saint-Jacques, the Collège de France, founded by Francis the First in 1530, still gives free lectures with no exams and no diplomas to anyone who walks in.
And in May 1968, police entered the courtyard and arrested students, and within days the Latin Quarter was in open revolt. The occupied Sorbonne became a non-stop debate club with posters on every wall. Now head up to Rue Soufflot and follow it uphill toward the colossal dome you can already see at the top.