Versailles and Power

Louis XIV transformed a hunting lodge into the Palace of Versailles (1661-1715), the most ambitious Baroque building project in Europe. Its Hall of Mirrors lined 17 arched windows with 357 facing mirrors — a dazzling display of French technological and financial supremacy at a time when large mirrors were an expensive state secret.

In the Andes, Spanish missionaries founded the Cusco School, where indigenous and mestizo painters reworked European religious imagery on their own terms. Their canvases gleam with gold-leaf detailing and local touches — Andean dress, native plants and birds — woven into Catholic scenes.