Discover the birthplace of Romanticism at the heart of the 9th arrondissement from Pigalle to Notre-Dame de Lorette. At the start of the 19th century when the land stretching between Notre-Dame de Lorette and Pigalle had not yet been built, the tax collector Lapeyrière and the architect Constantin worked together on building, villas, and town houses in the Italian and Greek style. The newly built district attracted a large number of artists who wanted to live there. Among these writers, actors, musicians, and painters were Ary Scheffer, Eugène Delacroix, Gustave Moreau, George Sand, Victor Hugo, Claude Monet … and many other illustrious names. These formed the elite of the Romantic movement in Paris and made no secret of their taste for the surrounding Hellenism even though Greece was fighting against the Ottoman Empire. New Athens was born! Today referred to as ‘SoPi’ (for South Pigalle), this is a hip district of Paris. Set off to discover the birthplace of Parisian Romanticism at the heart of the 9th arrondissement from Pigalle to Notre-Dame de Lorette.
