Collège des Quatre-Nations

The dome of the Collège des Quatre-Nations rises above the south bank of the Seine, its curved silhouette framed by two sweeping wings that anchor it to the quay. Cardinal Mazarin founded this institution in sixteen sixty-one to educate sixty young men from the four provinces recently annexed by France. He kept his massive library here, open to scholars of every nation. Mazarin died shortly before its completion and chose to be buried in the college chapel, just beneath that dome.