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La cour des Voraces - Lyon
The Cour des Voraces, also called Maison de la République, is a building court in the Pentes quarter, in the 1st arrondissement of Lyon, and famous for its enormous six-floor stairway of facade. It is a big traboule that link the number 9 of the Place Colbert and the number 14 bis of the montée de Saint-Sébastien or the number 29 of the rue Imbert-Colomès.
Situated on the slopes of the Croix-Rousse, the court is a major symbol of Lyon : built in 1840, it is a fine example of folk architecture ofcanuts, related to the silk industry, which deeply marked the neighborhood. It is also a place that symbolizes some great moments in the history of Lyon. A plaque says: “In the Cour des Voraces, hive of silk work, canuts struggled for their lives and their dignity.”
The court is certainly Voraces its name from a group of workers called the Voraces weavers, who distinguished themselves by their republican insurrections of 1848 and 1849.
According to sources, the Court of Voraces would have served as a refuge for canuts workers during their revolts. Given the date of construction, they may be fights during the second uprising of Voraces in 1849. But there is another hypothesis: the building would has housed the lodge of a mutual organization of canuts : Le Devoir mutuel. The deformed word Dévoirant, namely Le Devoir mutual members, would eventually have given the word “Voraces”.
During the Second World War, traboules of Lyon, dark and secret places, little known to foreigners, whose configuration favored covert activities enabled networks of resistance to escape from the surveillance of the German occupiers. Therefore, the Cour des Voraces remains often mentioned as a symbol of resistance.
In 1995, the Habitat et Humanisme Association led by Father Bernard Devers bought the place and launch the rehabilitation of the court that became a symbol of social housing.
The court (its floor and its two staircases) is classified as monument historique.
Piere Marie Mongis
Plat circulaire aux lambrequins, 1739 ou 1759
Faïence
Lyon, Musées Gadagne
Courtyard of a traboule from the 16th century.
Traboules (from Latin transambulare via vulgar Latin trabulare meaning “to cross”) are a type of passageway primarily associated with the city of Lyon, France, but also located in the French cities of Villefranche-sur-Saône, Mâcon, Saint-Étienne, along with a few in Chambéry). In Lyon, they were originally used by silkmanufacturers and other merchants to transport their products.
The first examples of traboules are thought to have been built in Lyon in the 4th century. Lacking water, the inhabitants moved to the banks of the Saône (in the ‘lower town’, at the foot of the Fourvière hill). The traboules thus allowed them to get from their homes to the river quickly and allowed the canuts on the La Croix-Rousse hill to get quickly from their workshops to the textile merchants at the foot of the hill. Thus the traboules of Lyon are located primarily in the ‘old city’ (5th arrondissement) and the Croix Rousse (1st and 4th arrondissements). The “Traboule de la cour des Voraces” (“Traboule of the Voracious Court”) is the most famous, located in the Croix-Rousse quarter. It is one of the landmarks of the Canut Revolts (Canut is a local term for silk workers) and it is also the oldest reinforced concrete stairwell in Lyon.
The layout of Vieux Lyon is such that there are very few connecting streets running perpendicular to the river. The traboules allowed workmen and craftsmen to transport clothes and other textiles through the city while remaining sheltered from inclement weather. For many inhabitants, being a “true Lyonnais” requires being knowledgeable about the city’s traboules. Nowadays, traboules are tourist attractions, and over forty are free and open to the public. Most traboules are on private property, serving as entrances to local apartments. Many, if not most, of the underground passages have been blocked off and are currently used as storage areas.
Car accident in front of the abattoirs de la Mouche (current Halle Tony Garnier), Lyon,
Panel of dress fabric with floral meander
French: Silk tabby, liseré and brocaded with silver lamella, filé and friséCentimetres: 85 (length), 54.4 (width)
1740 – 1760/Rococo - Area of Origin: France (Lyon)
Réplique de la Table claudienne exposée dans la cour du musée de l’imprimerie de Lyon. / Replica of the Lyon table in the court of the Printing museum in Lyon
The Lyon Tablet is an ancient bronze tablet that bears the transcript of a speech given by the Roman emperor Claudius. The surviving bottom portion of the tablet was discovered in 1528 by a draper in his vineyard on Croix Rousse Hill (on the site of the Sanctuary of the Three Gauls), in Lyon.
Claudius made the inscribed speech before the Roman Senate in 48 AD. It was a proposal to allow monied, landed citizens from further Gaul to enter the Senatorial class, and thus the Senate itself, once they had reached the necessary level of wealth.
Astronomical clock in the Cathédrale Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Lyon in Lyon, France
The clock is one of the oldest in Europe and has an astrolabe that indicates the date, the position of the moon, the sun, and the earth, as well as the stars in the sky over Lyon. Created in the age of geocentrism, the sun is shown circling the earth. An astronomical clock was first documented in the cathedral in 1383. It was almost completely destroyed during a 1562 raid by the Baron of Adrets during the War of Religions, and in 1661 was reconstructed by master Lyonnais clockmaker Guillaume Nourrisson. During the French Revolution, all ornamentation that referenced royalty, like coats of arms and fleur-de-lys, was stripped from the clock. The last restoration was in 1954, when the clock’s perpetual calendar of 66 years was reset. It will be accurate until 2019.
Chapelle de la Trinité
The Chapelle de la Trinité is the first church in baroque style built in Lyon.
It is created by the architect Étienne Martellange, a Jesuit brother who introduced architectural models of the Counter-Reformation in Lyon. Built between 1617 and 1622, the chapel is located within the building of the Grand Collège, under the direction of the Jesuits since 1567. It was devoted to college students. The decor is very refined with coatings of Carrara marble.
Until September 1799, the chapel served as a barracks. In 1801, the First Consul was there proclaimed President of the Italian Republic.
Thomas Blanchet, Horace le Blanc, Magnan and Pierre David are the sculptors or painters whose works can be seen in the chapel.
In the 1990s, the City of Lyon, the Grand Lyon and the State decided to restore the chapel. It was illuminated by 12 chandeliers, similar to those of the seventeenth century.
