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Bishop Jean de Cossonay invited the Franciscans to found a community in Lausanne in 1258; by 1272, they had completed their new church, which then stood at the centre of a monastic complex hard up against the southern city walls. However, various medieval fires took their toll, and in 1536 the Reformation arrived, the monastery was dissolved, and the building was cleared of religious imagery to become the parish church of Lausanne's Ville Basse (lower town). Further renovations, not all in especially good taste, disfigured the interior during later centuries, and although the church remains an atmospheric retreat from the bustle outside, today not a great deal is left of the St-François' illustrious past.
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