The Da Vinci Code opens with a murder in which famous museum?

The Da Vinci Code opens with a murder in the Louvre, the famous museum in Paris. The victim is Jacques Saunière, the Louvre’s curator, whose death sets the novel’s mystery in motion.

Written by Dan Brown and published in 2003, The Da Vinci Code begins with Saunière being pursued through the museum by an attacker. He is eventually found dead in the Louvre’s Grand Gallery, arranged in a strange position and surrounded by cryptic clues. The unusual scene brings Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon into the investigation alongside French police cryptologist Sophie Neveu.

The Louvre is more than a dramatic setting: its artworks and galleries become part of the puzzle. Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and The Last Supper are especially important to the story, although the novel’s historical theories and interpretations are fictional and have been widely disputed by historians. Readers sometimes confuse the opening with the film adaptation, but both the 2003 novel and the 2006 movie begin with Saunière’s murder at the Louvre.