First public art museum
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The Kunstmuseum Basel was the first public art museum. Its lineage extends back to the Amerbach Cabinet purchased by the city of Basel in 1661, which made it the first municipally owned museum. Other candidates for the title include the Capitoline Museums (1734).
Louvre
The first truly public museum was the Louvre Museum in Paris, opened in 1793 (ouvert très provisoirement dans la Grande Galerie du Louvre le 10 août 1793, anniversaire de la chute de la royauté, il fut accessible plus durablement à partir du 8 novembre suivant, Peintures italiennes du XVIIe siècle du Musée du Louvre : Florence, Gênes, Lombardie, Naples, Rome et Venise, Stéphane Loire) during the French Revolution, which enabled for the first time in history free access to the former French royal collections for people of all stations and status. The fabulous art treasures collected by the French monarchy over centuries were accessible to the public three days each "décade" (the 10-day unit which had replaced the week in the French Republican Calendar). The Conservatoire du muséum national des Arts (National Museum of Arts's Conservatory) was charged with organizing the Louvre as a national public museum and the centerpiece of a planned national museum system. As Napoléon I conquered the great cities of Europe, confiscating art objects as he went, the collections grew and the organizational task became more and more complicated. After Napoleon was defeated in 1815, many of the treasures he had amassed were gradually returned to their owners (and many were not). His plan was never fully realized, but his concept of a museum as an agent of nationalistic fervor had a profound influence throughout Europe.
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