Paris Observatory

The Paris Observatory rises above the surrounding garden as a block of cool, pale stone, its four corners aligned precisely with the cardinal directions. It serves as the oldest still-functioning astronomical observatory in the world, commissioned by Louis the Fourteenth in sixteen sixty-seven. When construction finished, Giovanni Cassini discovered the moons of Saturn here, and he used the building to map the sky for a king who wanted to master the heavens as firmly as he ruled his own realm.