1.
Lyon
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Lyon or Lyons is a city in east-central France, in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, about 470 km from Paris and 320 km from Marseille. Inhabitants of the city are called Lyonnais, Lyon had a population of 506,615 in 2014 and is Frances third-largest city after Paris and Marseille. Lyon is the capital of the Metropolis of Lyon and the region of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, the metropolitan area of Lyon had a population of 2,237,676 in 2013, the second-largest in France after Paris. The city is known for its cuisine and gastronomy and historical and architectural landmarks and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Lyon was historically an important area for the production and weaving of silk. It played a significant role in the history of cinema, Auguste, the city is also known for its famous light festival, Fête des Lumières, which occurs every 8 December and lasts for four days, earning Lyon the title of Capital of Lights. Economically, Lyon is a centre for banking, as well as for the chemical, pharmaceutical. The city contains a significant software industry with a focus on video games. Lyon hosts the headquarters of Interpol, Euronews, and International Agency for Research on Cancer. Lyon was ranked 19th globally and second in France for innovation in 2014 and it ranked second in France and 39th globally in Mercers 2015 liveability rankings. These refugees had been expelled from Vienne by the Allobroges and were now encamped at the confluence of the Saône and Rhône rivers, dio Cassius says this task was to keep the two men from joining Mark Antony and bringing their armies into the developing conflict. The Roman foundation was at Fourvière hill and was officially called Colonia Copia Felix Munatia, a name invoking prosperity, the city became increasingly referred to as Lugdunum. The earliest translation of this Gaulish place-name as Desired Mountain is offered by the 9th-century Endlicher Glossary, in contrast, some modern scholars have proposed a Gaulish hill-fort named Lugdunon, after the Celtic god Lugus, and dúnon. It then became the capital of Gaul, partly due to its convenient location at the convergence of two rivers, and quickly became the main city of Gaul. Two emperors were born in city, Claudius, whose speech is preserved in the Lyon Tablet in which he justifies the nomination of Gallic senators. Today, the archbishop of Lyon is still referred to as Primat des Gaules, the Christians in Lyon were martyred for their beliefs under the reigns of various Roman emperors, most notably Marcus Aurelius and Septimus Severus. Local saints from this period include Blandina, Pothinus, and Epipodius, in the second century AD, the great Christian bishop of Lyon was the Easterner, Irenaeus. Burgundian refugees fleeing the destruction of Worms by the Huns in 437 were re-settled by the commander of the west, Aëtius. This became the capital of the new Burgundian kingdom in 461, in 843, by the Treaty of Verdun, Lyon, with the country beyond the Saône, went to Lothair I
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France
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France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks
3.
Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon
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The Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon is a municipal museum of fine arts in the French city of Lyon. It is housed near place des Terreaux in a former Benedictine convent of the 17th and 18th centuries and it was restored between 1988 and 1998, and despite these important restoration works it remained open to visitors. Its collections range from ancient Egypt antiquities to the Modern art period and it hosts important exhibitions of art, recently there have been exhibitions of works by Georges Braque and Henri Laurens, then one on the work of Théodore Géricault. It is one of the largest art museums in France, until 1792, the buildings belonged to the royal abbaye des Dames de Saint-Pierre, built in the 17th century. The abbess always came from the high French nobility and here received the personalities of the kingdom, the institution had a particularly aristocratic slant, as is shown by its renovation by Louis XIV of France in the 17th and 18th centuries. The rest of its current scheme was designed by Nicolas Bidaut, the expulsion of the nuns and the destruction of the église Saint-Saturnin date to the French Revolution, though the abbeys other church still exists and now houses 19th and 20th century sculptures. After the Revolution the remaining buildings housed the Palais du Commerce et des Arts, at first made up of works confiscated from the clergy and nobility, for example, it gained archaeology and natural history collections and those of the Académie des Sciences et des Lettres. The imperial drawing school was created in 1805 in the Palais du Commerce et des Arts to provide Lyons silk factories with designers and it gave birth to the famous Lyon School. In 1860, the Chambre de Commerce left the Palais Saint-Pierre, from 1875, the museums collections underwent a major expansion and had to be expanded - the staircase by Pierre Puvis de Chavannes dates to this era. The start of the 20th century was marked by a considerable opening-up of the collections, after several restoration projects, it was in the mid-1990s that the building acquired its present scheme. The paintings department has European paintings of 14th- to mid-20th-century paintings and they are arranged chronologically and by major schools in 35 rooms. The collection features, Ancient French painting, at the heart of the abbey, the former cloister is now a municipal garden, right in the centre of the town, on the peninsula. The highlights of the collection are its display of sarcophaguses and the gates of Ptolemy III, the rest of the objects throw light on everyday life in ancient Egypt. Room 2, The divine and its rites Along this rooms length a temples decoration is recreated, culminating with the gates of Ptolemy III, the other bas-reliefs in this room come from Koptos - eight are dated to the Middle Kingdom and come from a temple to Min. They were discovered by Adolphe Reinach in 1909 in the foundations of a late building,11 other fragments come from the end of the Ptolemaic era, and more precisely the reign of Cleopatra VII. Room 3, The cult of the divine Entered through the gate of Ptolemy IV, on the walls are shown 3 fragments of bas-reliefs from the 28th Dynasty, also found in Koptos. One whole case is devoted to representations of Osiris and another to those of the pharaoh, here can be seen a head of a pharaoh of the 30th Dynasty, attributed to Nectanebo II, a Middle Kingdom bust and a scarab with the name of Amenhotep II. Room 5, Pharaoh and his servants In one case are 18 wooden models of the 23rd Dynasty from Assiout from tombs, representing scenes from everyday life, in the opposite case are two with displays on writing and on the pharaohs servants respectively
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Vieux Lyon
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The Vieux Lyon is the largest Renaissance district of Lyon in the 5th arrondissement of Lyon. This zone is served by the metro line D In 1954, Vieux-Lyon, covering an area of 424 hectares at the foot of the Fourvière hill, it is one of Europe’s most extensive Renaissance neighborhoods. There are three sections, Saint Jean, Saint Paul and Saint Georges. The Saint Jean quarter, in the Middle Ages, this was the focus of political, the Cathedral of St Jean, seat of the Primate of Gaul, a title still conferred upon the archbishop of Lyon, is a good example of Gothic architecture. The Manecanterie adjoining the cathedral is one of Lyons few extant Romanesque buildings, formerly a choir school, it now houses the museum of the cathedral’s treasures. Saint Jean is also home to the Museum of Miniatures and Film Sets, the Saint-Paul section, in the 15th and 16th centuries predominately Italian banker-merchants moved into sumptuous urban residences here called hôtels particuliers. The Hôtel Bullioud and the Hôtel de Gadagne are two magnificent examples and the now houses the Lyon Historical Museum and the International Puppet Museum. The Loge du Change stands as testimony to the period when trade fairs made the city wealthy, the Saint Paul church with its Romanesque lantern tower and its spectacular spire mark the section’s northern extremity. The Saint Georges section, silk weavers settled here beginning in the 16th century before moving to the Croix Rousse hill in the 19th century, in 1844, the architect Pierre Bossan rebuilt the St Georges Church on the banks of the Saônein a neo-Gothic style. In the Middle Ages, when there were only a few parallel streets between the hill and the Saône, the first traboules were built. Derived from the Latin trans-ambulare, meaning to pass through, traboules are corridors through buildings and their courtyards, visitors can discover an architectural heritage of galleries and spiral staircases in these secret passageways, as unexpected as they are unique. Saint-Paul is the quarter surrounding gare Saint-Paul eand the homonymous church and its the cultural center of Vieux Lyon, with two main institutes, the Maristes and the Lazarists. The Pont de la Feuillée links these institutes with quai Saint-Vincent and this area underwent an importante mutation in the end of 19th century with the construction the Saint-Paul station. Many ancients buildings were levelled to make room for the future rue Octavio-Mey and then the Palais du Bondy, sites remarquables Place Saint-Paul, The metro station serving the valley of Azergues at north of Lyon was built in 1873. Léglise Saint-Paul a subi les aléas du temps, construite une première fois en 549, furent ajoutés en 1875-77 une flèche et le portail néo-gothique. Elle possède un lanterneau roman réparti en deux dômes octogonaux au sommet de lédifice, on peut observer lédifice en bénéficiant dune vue densemble de la place Gerson, du nom dun théologien inhumé dans léglise en 1428. Sur la place se trouve la maison Mourguet où le créateur de Guignol y monta des spectacles, elle possède une tourelle carrée en encorbellement. Saint-Paul is the quarter surrounding gare Saint-Paul eand the homonymous church and its the scholastic pole of Vieux Lyon, with two main institutes, les Maristes et les Lazaristes
5.
Pope Innocent III
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Pope Innocent III reigned from 8 January 1198 to his death. His birth name was Lotario dei Conti di Segni, sometimes anglicised to Lothar of Segni, Pope Innocent was one of the most powerful and influential popes. He exerted an influence over the Christian states of Europe. Pope Innocent was central in supporting the Catholic Churchs reforms of ecclesiastical affairs through his decretals and this resulted in a considerable refinement of Western canon law. Pope Innocent is notable for using interdict and other censures to compel princes to obey his decisions, Innocent called for Christian crusades against Muslim Spain and the Holy Land, as well as the Albigensian Crusade against the Cathars in southern France. One of Pope Innocents critical decisions was organizing the Fourth Crusade, originally intended to attack Jerusalem through Egypt, a series of unforeseen circumstances led the crusaders to Constantinople, where they ultimately sacked the city in 1204. Lotario de Conti was born in Gavignano, near Anagni and his father was Count Trasimund of Segni and was a member of a famous house, Conti, which produced nine Popes, including Gregory IX, Alexander IV and Innocent XIII. Lotario was the nephew of Pope Clement III, his mother, as Pope, Lotario was to play a major role in the shaping of canon law through conciliar canons and decretal letters. He subscribed the papal bulls between 7 December 1190 and 4 November 1197, as a cardinal, Lotario wrote De miseria humanae conditionis. The work was popular for centuries, surviving in more than 700 manuscripts. Although he never returned to the work he intended to write, On the Dignity of Human Nature. Celestine III died on 8 January 1198 and he was only thirty-seven years old at the time. He took the name Innocent III, maybe as a reference to his predecessor Innocent II, as pope, Innocent III began with a very wide sense of his responsibility and of his authority. The Muslim recapture of Jerusalem in 1187 was to him a divine judgment on the moral lapses of Christian princes and he was also determined to protect what he called the liberty of the Church from inroads by secular princes. The patrimonium was routinely threatened by Hohenstaufen German kings who, as Roman emperors, the early death of Henry VI left his 4-year-old son Frederick II as king. Henry VI’s widow Constance of Sicily ruled over Sicily for her son before he reached the age of majority. She was as eager to remove German power from the kingdom of Sicily as was Innocent III, before her death in 1198, she named Innocent as guardian of the young Frederick until he reached his maturity. In exchange, Innocent was also able to recover papal rights in Sicily that had been surrendered decades earlier to King William I of Sicily by Pope Adrian IV, the Pope invested the young Frederick II as King of Sicily in November 1198
6.
Jules Hardouin-Mansart
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Jules Hardouin-Mansart was a French architect whose work is generally considered to be the apex of French Baroque architecture, representing the power and grandeur of Louis XIV. Hardouin-Mansart was one of the most important European architects of the seventeenth century and he also learned from Libéral Bruant, architect of the royal veterans hospital in Paris known as Les Invalides. Hardouin-Mansart served as Louis XIVs chief architect, first enlarging the royal château of Saint-Germain-en-Laye and he became the surintendant des Bâtiments du Roi. Outside the château proper, he built the Grand Trianon and the Orangerie, as well as subsidiary royal dwellings not far away, most of these works still set their stamp on the character of Paris and can be seen by a modern-day tourist. A traditional French touch is the modest pedimented entrance flanked by projecting pavilions. Behind, the axis is extended between the former parterres, now grass. The park with formally shaped water was out by André Le Nôtre. The small scale makes it easier to compare to the approximately contemporary Het Loo and he died at Marly-le-Roi in 1708. 17th-century French art Herbermann, Charles, ed. Jules Mansard
