ABSTRACT
Lyons is an old city, founded as a Roman colony in 43 BC. The Emperors Claudius and Caracalla were both born in the city, and since the days of the Roman empire it has been an important crossroads between southern Europe and northern Europe. The first printing press appeared in Lyons in 1473, three years after its introduction in Paris. From the fifteenth to the nineteenth century printers and booksellers lived in the parish of Saint-Nizier, at the heart of the peninsula. Like other tradesmen, the booksellers were also used to provide various services for people in the neighbourhood. The history of France in the sixteenth century had been marked by bloody religious conflicts, and those printers who had chosen Protestantism had been forced to flee. In the nineteenth century, the political involvement of Lyons printers was marked mainly by the part they played as the publishers of political newspapers.
