Hôtel de la Couronne, Printing Museum

In front of you is the Hôtel de la Couronne, a merchant's house from the late 15th century. From 1604 until the mid-17th century it was Lyon's town hall: the aldermen met here, and it was here in 1643 that they made the vow to the Virgin of Fourvière that features on another of our routes. Since 1964 it has housed the Museum of Printing and Graphic Communication.

1A city of printers

On 17 September 1473, a typesetter from Liège, Guillaume Le Roy, finished printing the Compendium breve in Lyon, commissioned by the merchant Barthélemy Buyer, who had set him up in his own house. For over a century it has been regarded as the first dated book printed in the city, although recent research suggests that some undated editions may be earlier.

What came next is beyond dispute. With its fairs, its paper and its capital, Lyon became one of the great printing centres of 16th-century Europe, with hundreds of workshops clustered around nearby Rue Mercière. Sébastien Gryphe and Étienne Dolet worked here, and Rabelais published his Pantagruel here in 1532.

Dolet, printer and humanist, was eventually condemned and burned in Paris in 1546: printing could be a dangerous trade.

2What to look for

• The pointed-arch doorway, a reminder of the 15th-century building.
• The red banners marking the museum entrance.
• Rue Mercière, just round the corner, the street of Renaissance booksellers.