The basilica | ©Jean Housen / CC-BY-SAThe Fourvière hill is pretty old, since we found a Roman forum here, in the reign of emperor Trajan, called forum vetus in Latin... later transformed into Fort Vieil then Fourvière.
Then they raised a small chapel in the 9th century, reraised at the end of the 12th century.
But Lyon was ravaged by plague epidemics in the 16th and 17th centuries!
Religious authorities decided to create a pilgrimage, in 1643, each year in September, in order to stop the disease!
People had to go in the church to give a golden crown and light a candle! Nowadays, the pilgrimage still exists.
You know what? This tradition inspired a candy to confectioners, the coussin from Lyon...
But what about the current Neo-Byzantine basilica? Well, it was raised at the end of the 19th century, thanks to the architect Pierre Bossan.