Paris for All of Us is Avital Inbar’s new book about Paris. I’m happy and proud to bring you a small taste of it: the chapter on the Musée de Cluny, the museum of the Middle Ages (Musée National du Moyen-Age Thermes et Hôtel de Cluny), which reopened in 2022 after many years of renovation.
One of the Greatest Pleasures in Paris
The National Museum of the Middle Ages, the Thermes and Hôtel de Cluny, known simply as Cluny, is one of those museums built, at least at the start, on an extraordinary collection that one man devoted his life to gathering, and then donated to the state along with the house where he lived and kept his pieces: Alexandre du Sommerard (1779-1852), an exceptional collector from the Romantic era.
Unlike other museums whose collections came from a donation, Sommerard was not immortalized in the museum’s name, only in the name of the nearby street. The museum presents a thousand years of medieval culture and art, a long period that has almost vanished from the Parisian landscape.
Cluny has a double historical distinctiveness that makes it uniquely suited to serve as a museum of the Middle Ages: the combination of Roman baths and the adjoining Hôtel de Cluny, one of only two large houses to survive completely intact from medieval Paris, traces, by a wonderful coincidence, the two chronological ends of the collection, which spans 1,500 years, from the end of antiquity, the Roman period in France, to the late Middle Ages and the early Renaissance.
The baths, which spread over an enormous area (possibly the largest such establishment in Lutetia, and whose size hints at the wealth of the settlement), are impressive in their scale and grandeur. They surround the museum facing Boulevard Saint-Michel and the garden facing Boulevard Saint-Germain.
When it was founded in 1843, Cluny was not yet a specialized museum. Over the generations, more donations were added, such as the Strauss-Rothschild collection of Jewish art (since transferred to the Museum of the History of Judaism). At one point, people said that in certain fields it rivaled the Louvre. That was an exaggeration, but it pointed in the right direction.
After the end of World War II, it began developing its current specialty. As a student, I walked past it hundreds of times and never went in. It had a reputation for being uninteresting, and was often closed anyway: not a flattering image. Finally, as part of the Grands Travaux, it underwent a thorough renovation and reopened in 1997. That’s when I started visiting, and I was enchanted.
Another major renovation, which took several years, was completed in May 2022. A new structure was built to serve as the entrance lobby. Ruti Shimoni visited the site during the work and reported that “they created a stunning new entrance that pays tribute to the earlier structure while immediately highlighting its Roman past.” The structure sits above an archaeological reserve that has not been fully excavated, and protects it. The museum, the newest in Paris as of 2022, is now more comfortable and also accessible for visitors with disabilities. Part of the collection has been scanned into 3D images.
Cluny is one of the greatest pleasures in Paris. After the renovation, the pleasure is even greater. The museum is relatively small, and I’ve never run into crowds there. It is devoted to 1,500 years of human history, mainly European. The longest period since prehistory is considered an age of barbarism, and its art was long seen as inferior, especially once the Renaissance that followed labeled it as such. Medieval art earned the label “primitive” during the Renaissance, a label that still clings to it today. In fact, it was in part a period of great refinement in art and architecture, especially Gothic architecture, and politically it was less barbaric than the more recent centuries, the age of so-called progress.
I was struck at the time by the cleverness of the displays and by the sheer number of exhibits: religious objects and works of art, church decoration and architecture. Gothic ornamentation borrowed for cathedral decoration not only secular motifs but also pagan, mythological and “scandalous” ones, whose purpose was moralistic: to display evil on earth and the punishment that awaited it, in order to preach goodness.
Alongside religious art, the museum displays secular and royal art, furniture, utensils, ancient embroidery, painted fabrics from the first millennium, art and craftsmanship from Muslim courts, and tapestries. One room is devoted to the tapestries of the Lady with the Unicorn (La Dame à la Licorne), a wondrous and mysterious work woven in Flanders at the end of the 16th century. It hung in the Château de Boussac in central France.
The work, which leaves a powerful impression, is devoted to the five senses and to an unexplained sixth sense. In the Middle Ages, various animals, monkeys, dogs, rabbits, birds, and creatures from legend, had clear symbolism, some of it erotic. Based on the animals beside the lady, it is unclear whether she has renounced the pleasures of love or is about to give herself over to them.
At the end of 2000, a large medieval garden was inaugurated next to the museum, adjoining the intersection of Boulevard Saint-Michel and Boulevard Saint-Germain. It includes elements with meaning in the esoteric knowledge of the time: medicinal herbs, a garden of love, a celestial garden, an enclosed garden with a carpet of a thousand flowers symbolizing the tapestries. Some of them connect to the symbolism embodied in the exhibits, especially the animals and plants in the Lady’s tapestry. Guided visits let visitors discover the decorative, nutritional and medicinal functions of the plants and their symbolism, and, for comparison, the parallel symbolism found in the museum’s artworks.
Gali Dekel and Arye Rafaeli visited the museum, and they recommend it:
On our many visits to Paris, we walked past the Musée de Cluny countless times. But something about its medieval structure, detached from its surroundings and from the vibrant, energetic Parisian experience, made us keep putting off the visit. Now, following a course in medieval studies, and with its reopening after an extensive renovation, the time was finally right to go inside.
On a drowsy Sunday afternoon, we made our way to the renovated museum, not before enjoying a juicy tarte Tatin at the nearby Place de la Sorbonne. The dominant feelings that come from a visit to Cluny are modesty and humility. In the world of medieval art, the human being is never at the center of the work, and always serves an idea greater than itself. This motif recurs across a wide range of medieval works, and the display at Cluny illustrates it beautifully.
What we especially loved is that, unlike other large museums, you can’t escape into modern works here, so you are forced to surrender to that modest form of existence that acknowledges human fragility and impermanence. During the visit, little by little, you slip into a different mode of existence and thought, and that, after all, is art’s central purpose: to look at reality anew.
A chronological route guides the visitor from the early Middle Ages, in the first millennium, to the early Renaissance. It brings the visitor face to face with religious objects, tools, decorative items, jewelry, copper household items, as well as stained glass windows, icons made of carved wood and more: a wealth of objects from various life skills, offering a vivid and moving glimpse into the heart of the world of medieval people.
The most interesting item on display is the Golden Rose, given as a token of appreciation by Pope John XXII to the Count of Neuchâtel in 1330. A life-size rose, made entirely of gold leaves, but without thorns (it was created by an Italian artist in Avignon, the seat of the popes at that time).
But the highlight of the visit is, without a doubt, the crown jewel of medieval art: the work “The Lady and the Unicorn,” dated to the late 15th century. It was created to glorify a sprawling noble dynasty whose emblem appears in various places throughout the work. Six mysterious tapestries present dreamlike scenes of a young woman and a unicorn, against a flower-strewn background in the millefleurs style (“a thousand flowers”), covering the walls of an entire room.
According to the accepted interpretation, each image represents one of the five senses, and the last image (which some believe represents a “sixth sense,” the metaphysical one) remains an enigma. The viewer cannot help but stand in awe before this magnificent, innocent and moving work.
Also on display is the Hall of Kings’ Heads, a striking series of body and head sculptures of the Kings of Judah carved in marble, partially mutilated: statues that revolutionaries tore down from the facade of Notre-Dame, thinking they were the kings of France, and that survived by a miracle… as well as statues from the Church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Sainte-Chapelle and other churches in their various incarnations.
The museum building sits in a garden, which contains well-preserved remains of the Roman baths discovered beneath it. Guided visits combined with singing are also offered. We happened to join one, with a guide who sang, which carries the visitor, in the most immediate and ultimate way, into the atmosphere of the Middle Ages.
Useful Information for Visiting the Musée de Cluny
Address
28, rue du Sommerard. The nearest métro station is Cluny–La Sorbonne, but you can also get there via the Luxembourg and Saint-Michel métro stations.
Opening Days and Hours
Tuesday through Sunday, 09:30–18:15. Late opening until 21:30 on the first and third Thursday of each month. Closed Mondays, January 1, May 1 and December 25.
Tickets
Admission costs €10–12. Free for visitors under 18, or under 25 for EU residents. Free for everyone on the first Sunday of each month.
Planning to fit another museum into your trip? I’ve gathered all the museums in Paris into one guide, organized by type, with ticket links.
Frequently Asked Questions
When did the Musée de Cluny reopen after renovation?
Who was Alexandre du Sommerard and what did he contribute to the museum?
How many years does the period on display at the Musée de Cluny span?
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