Institut de France seen from the Quai Malaquais
The building which houses the Institut de France was constructed between 1663 and 1684 through a bequest of Cardinal Mazarin, and was known at first as the Collège Mazarin or Collège des Quatres Nations. The Institute itself, grouping several existing Academies (including that of the Beaux-Arts), was founded in 1795 but moved in 1806 to the building which then took its name. The Pont des Arts over the river Seine, which leads straight to the Institut, had been built shortly before, in 1802-1804.
Berlioz’s contacts with the Institut started early in his career: it was in the precincts of the building that candidates for the Prix de Rome prize would come and reside in June or July every year to write the obligatory cantata on a set text. Berlioz thus wrote his four cantatas there in his protracted attempts to win the prize from 1827 to 1830.