
Temple du Change
Baroque-neoclassical money-exchange hall turned Protestant church, with a Cicero inscription over its door.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the Temple du Change in Lyon follows the money changers who once worked this square, nicknamed the city's Wall Street, converting coin for merchants pouring in during Lyon's tax-free trade fairs. It traces the building's rebuilding decades later by a young Jacques-Germain Soufflot, long before he designed the Pantheon in Paris, and the line from Cicero he stamped across its front. Look up at that inscription as you step through the doorway.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
La Place du Change
Neoclassical money-changers' hall topped by twin clocks, one finished two hundred fifty years late.
Vieux Lyon
Renaissance quarter of narrow stone lanes once home to Europe's richest banking families.
Rue Saint-Jean
Renaissance commercial artery of tall merchant houses, threaded with covered passages once used by traders and porters.
Church of Saint-Bruno des Chartreux
Baroque canopy of real cloth dipped in plaster, frozen mid-billow above a marble altar.
Trinity Chapel
Baroque Jesuit chapel that spent seven years as a school gymnasium before becoming a concert hall.
Église Saint-Paul - Chapelle Sainte-Marguerite
Romanesque church rebuilt across three generations after Revolution-era ruin, with a hidden fifteenth-century fresco chapel.