The Roots of Celebrity in Paris

We've been give a sneak preview of Stanford art historian Professor Michael Marrinan's research, illustrating how the brief, but pivotal period of 1800 -1850 in Paris, became the setting for a revolution in the arts that permanently transformed the city.

Between the coups d'état of Napoléon Bonaparte in 1799 and of his nephew Louis-Napoléon fifty years later, Paris weathered extremes of political and economic fortune.  Once the shining capital of a pan-European empire, it was overrun and occupied by foreign armies.

Marrinan explains how Parisian art, culture, architecture and history influenced and changed one another during these unlikely times in his new book Romantic Paris.

You can read a short feature story online here on how the concept of 'celebrity' that we know today, came to be in 19th century Paris, through the example of violinist Niccolo Paganini.