Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The Gallo-Roman site of Saint-Roman-en-Gal, discovered in 1967 during the construction of a high school, is an artisanal and residential area of the ancient Vienna. Occupied at the end of the 1st century BC, it houses peristyle domuses, warehouses, shops and workshops. This area was bounded to the south by the Palais du Miroir, separating the districts of Saint-Romain-en-Gal and Sainte-Colombe-lès-Vienne. After an abandonment in the fourth to fifth centuries, convents settled there from the fifth century.

The museum, inaugurated in 1996 and managed by the Rhône department, exhibits mosaics, objects and models that reconstruct Gallo-Roman life. In 2021 he obtained the label Tourism and Handicap. A EUR 60 million renovation project, originally planned between 2027 and 2030, was cancelled in 2025, with the aim of renovating the exterior spaces, including the resumption of excavations.

In 2025, excavations revealed a circular Roman mausoleum (circa 50 AD), inspired by the Augustan mausoleum, with a diameter of 15 m and an estimated height of 6 m. This funeral monument, one of Gaul's best preserved, probably belonged to an aristocrat linked to imperial power. The site, classified as Historic Monument in 1983, attracts 70,000-80,000 visitors annually since 2010.

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