L'Homme de la Roche

In front of you, in his grotto, is the 'Homme de la Roche', the man of the rock. To the people of Lyon he is the 'bon Allemand', the good German. His name was Jean Kleberger, and his story mixes finance, charity and a popular devotion that treated him almost like a saint.

1A banker from Nuremberg

Kleberger was born in Nuremberg in 1485 and worked for the Imhof trading house, which had an office in Lyon. During his German years, Albrecht Dürer painted his portrait, now in Vienna. He settled in Lyon around 1532, at the height of the fairs and the bankers. In 1531, the year of the 'great dearth', when hunger and plague struck the city, his name headed the list of donors with five hundred livres. He supported the Aumône générale, the great charitable institution, was made an alderman in December 1545 and died in Lyon on 6 September 1546.

2From wood to stone

Soon after his death a wooden statue was put up here, like those of the saints. It was renewed in 1729 and in 1820; the latter lost its head in an accident. The present stone statue was unveiled on 16 September 1849 in a grotto dug out specially for it.

Tradition remembers him as 'the man who married off poor girls' by paying their dowries; his generosity is documented, but that detail belongs to popular memory.

On top of this rock stood the castle of Pierre-Scize, a fortress-prison demolished after the Revolution.

3What to look for

• The purse in his right hand and the will in his left.
• The rock pedestal, more than four metres high.
• The crag of Pierre-Scize, which gives the quay its name.