Musée des Beaux-Arts, Marseille
Fine-arts collection housed in a palace wing built beside a monumental fountain honoring a river.
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About this audio guide
This guide to the Musee des Beaux-Arts in Marseille starts behind the building, at a monumental fountain of stone bulls and river goddesses, and traces why it exists: an 1835 cholera outbreak that exposed a city drinking from fouled wells. You'll hear how engineer Franz Mayor de Montricher revived a centuries-old plan to bring water from the Durance river, and how architect Henri Esperandieu, also behind Notre-Dame de la Garde, built the museum wings around the result. It follows the decade of digging that followed, and the sculptors who turned the arrival of water into allegory.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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