The Institut de France brings together 5 prestigious academies. Parliament of a scholarly world made up of 350 academicians divided among the 5 academies that certain detractors who wade in lack of culture accuse of obsolescence, two academicians of fine arts and inscriptions of belles-lettres respond to the attack.
So of course, the star of the 5 academies, the most illustrious has the name the French Academy, a sleight of hand by Cardinal de Richelieu who brought together the intellectual elites to better monitor them. Academicians rhyme with masculine. For 300 years, there will only be men under the dome until the blessed day of 1980, when finally, a woman has the honors of the Academy, Marguerite Yourcenarfiercely supported by Jean d’Ormesson.
The Institut de France has a prestigious heritage, the 18th century building on quai Conti, the Marmottant library in the 16th, the Dosne-Thiers foundation in the 9th, the Mazarine library as well as, the most beautiful jewel, the Château de Chantilly and its museum, the second most beautiful national collection in old paintings after the Louvre, a panorama of the history of art Poussin, Greuze, Watteau, Raphaël, Ingres, Delacroix and the icing on the cake, the naked Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci, yes, the Naked Mona Lisa! Thank you Institute of France.