from CONTEXTS OF CRITICISM: METROPOLITAN CULTURE AND SOCIO-LITERARY ENVIRONMENTS
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008
The development of French poetry and criticism in the sixteenth century cannot be understood without reference to the growth and transformation of two great urban centres, Lyons and Paris. Although there was much exchange between the cities, with figures headquartered in Paris active in Lyons and vice versa, these cities offer contrasting images of the relationship between criticism and its social and institutional milieu. Indeed, the mere presence of Lyons as a cultural centre rivalling Paris is one of the features that sets the Renaissance apart from other moments in French cultural history, for it complicates the relationship of centre and margin, capital and province, that has tended to dominate French cultural life since the early seventeenth century. Lyons was the port of entry through which the Renaissance came to France. Not only did its location, virtually on the Italian border, make it the point of exchange for all contact with the peninsula to the south, but Lyons underwent a rapid process of transformation during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries that made it a city of international importance. From the early 1400s Lyons had been famous for its commercial fairs. These events, which attracted merchants from all over Europe, were initially held twice a year for six days. Then, by decree of Charles VII in 1444, a third fair was added, and all of them were extended to twenty days each. The crown's aim in promoting Lyons was to establish the city as the mercantile crossroads of Europe, thereby turning her rival and neighbour Geneva into a backwater.
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