The story of this place
In 1536 Geneva voted to embrace the Reformation, and the French theologian John Calvin arrived to build a rigorous city-church that made Geneva a beacon for persecuted Protestants across Europe. From here Calvin's ideas radiated to Scotland, the Netherlands and Puritan New England. The 100-metre Reformation Wall, unveiled in 1917 in the Parc des Bastions beside Calvin's university, presents six-metre statues of Calvin, Farel, Beza and Knox flanked by the motto 'Post Tenebras Lux'—'After darkness, light.' Servetus's 1553 burning here still shadows the movement's history of intolerance.