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Origin and history

The house of Lorette, also known as the Bréda house or the house of Pauline Jaricot, is a country house built around 1520 in the 5th arrondissement of Lyon. Built by Pierre Burbenon, lieutenant-general on the senate floor of Lyon, it replaces an older 14th century building. The house, designed as a belvedere marina on the city, retains remarkable architectural elements such as joint ceilings and wall paintings. It illustrates the architecture of the hill houses of the Lyon Renaissance.

In the 18th century, the house was enlarged before being acquired in 1832 by Pauline Jaricot, a Lyon Catholic figure. This is the house of Lorette in tribute to the Italian town of Loreto, where she had stayed. She installed her missionary works, the Propagation of the Faith and the living Rosary, and arranged a chapel dedicated to Saint Philomena in 1839. A staircase leading to Fourvière, now named as Mount Cardinal Billé, is also built under his impulse.

Ranked a Historic Monument in 2004 for its exceptional character, the house is described as the last testimony of the Lyon hillhouses of the late 15th and early 16th centuries. The 19th century developments, linked to the action of Pauline Jaricot, are also protected. After his death in 1862, the property moved to the Pontifical Mission Societies in 1975, which made it a place of memory and prayer, restored between 2002 and 2005 under the direction of the chief architect of the Historical Monuments, Didier Repellin.

The chapel of Saint Philomena, inaugurated in 1839, houses a shawl containing the relics of Saint Peter Lê Tuy, a Vietnamese martyr priest. Cardinal Louis-Marie Billé celebrated his last Mass there in January 2002. Since 2021, the welcome of the site has been ensured by the sisters of the Missionary Family of Notre-Dame. The site, open to the public, combines historical memory, spirituality and cultural events.

Pauline Jaricot, miraculously healed in 1835 during a pilgrimage to Mugnano del Cardinale on the tomb of Saint Philomena, obtained in 1837 the pontifical authorization to worship this saint with Gregory XVI. Its missionary heritage and its role in preserving this Lyon heritage make it a major figure in local religious history.

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