Place des Jacobins

In front of you is Place des Jacobins, one of the most elegant spaces on the Presqu'île. Its name recalls the Dominicans, known in France as Jacobins, whose convent occupied the south side of the square. Their church, built in the 15th century with money from the 'Florentine nation', was pulled down in the early 19th century.

1The chatterboxes of Confort

It used to be called Place Confort, after a chapel of Notre-Dame de Confort. Rue Mercière, the great street of Renaissance printers and booksellers, ended here. Rabelais, who published in Lyon, mentions in Pantagruel the 'bavards de Confort', the chatterboxes who gathered in this square to swap stories.

2The artists' fountain

Its present shape came with the major works of the Second Empire, which opened Rue Impériale, today's Rue de la République, and Rue Édouard-Herriot. The fountain is by the Lyon architect Gaspard André, whose design was approved in 1878 and completed in the mid-1880s. Its four statues represent artists born in Lyon: the architect Philibert Delorme, the engraver Gérard Audran, the sculptor Guillaume Coustou and the painter Hippolyte Flandrin.

During the Revolution the square was called Place de la Fraternité, while Bellecour was Equality and the Terreaux was Liberty.

3What to look for

• The four seated statues, each with the attributes of his art.
• The marble mermaids by Eugène Delaplanche, from 1884.
• Rue Mercière, leading north from the square, now full of restaurants.