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Origin and history

The College of Godrans of Dijon was founded in 1581 by Odinet Godran, President of the Parliament of Burgundy, who offered his mansion to the Jesuits to establish a college there. The works, initiated around 1585 under the impulse of the Duke of Mayenne, were interrupted in 1594 by the banning of the Jesuits, before resuming in 1603 after the lifting of the ban. The architect Étienne Martellange then supervised the construction, especially that of the chapel, consecrated in 1617. A private library, enriched by gifts such as Bernard Martin's in 1632, was built under the roofs in the currency room, decorated with painted boxes between 1654 and 1657.

In 1701 Pierre Fevret bequeathed his personal library to the college, imposing his public access two days a week, marking the birth of the first public library in Dijon. After the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1763, the City of Dijon took charge of the college, and Abbé Boullemier unified the collections in a new room, inspired by the Royal Library, completed in 1792. The Revolution transformed the college into a repository of confiscated national books, then into a central school in 1795, before it was transferred to the municipality in 1803.

In the 19th century, the building successfully housed a normal school, a primary school, and finally, in 1909, the municipal library, installed in the former Jesuit chapel. The collections are enriched by major donations, such as Jules Legras (Russian fonds) and Henri Breuil (medieval manuscripts). Today, the Bibliothèque Patrimoine et Étude preserves more than 500,000 documents, including 4,000 manuscripts, 245 incunables, and a giant earth globe of the eighteenth century, in rooms classified as Historical Monuments such as the currency room or the Boullemier Hall.

The architecture of the college bears witness to its Jesuit history: the monumental door of the chapel (1615), carved by Pierre Dubois, the well of love (1543) transplanted into the courtyard, or the painted decorations of the chapel, today the reading room. The historic halls, such as the Globe (representing a 1.94-metre-diameter globe), or the Memories Room, have been a reminder of its educational and cultural role for four centuries.

Among the treasures preserved are manuscripts of the Abbey of Cîteaux (XII century), a collection of the Privileges of Cîteaux printed in 1491, or a manuscript of ancient history up to Caesar made at Saint-Jean-d'Acre (1260–170). These collections, supplemented by gastronomic background (19 000 menus) or Burgundy, make it a major place of French written heritage.

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