The Louvre began life not as a museum but as a wolf-haunted fortress.

Its name derives from the Latin "lupara," and for 300 years, French kings called it home before decamping to Versailles. When it opened as a museum in 1793, revolutionary idealists envisioned it as a monument to universal human knowledge.

That symbolism persists in I.M. Pei's 1989 pyramid, which isn't one pyramid but five: the central glass giant, three smaller companions, and an invisible fifth standing on the roundabout nearby. The number five, in Masonic tradition, represents humankind.

Today, the Louvre holds half a million artworks and displays some 30,000 at any given time. Delacroix's "Liberty Leading the People" hangs here, as do sculptures salvaged from the château of Marly.

VoiceMap's self-guided audio tours trace the building's transformation from a medieval garrison to a royal residence to a revolutionary symbol, revealing how its pyramid's glass panels were crafted by Saint-Gobain, the same company that made Louis XIV's mirrors at Versailles.