Edward Gibbon spent more than a third of his life in Lausanne, first for his education during the 1750s (following a stint at Magdalen College, Oxford); then in the early 1760s on a stopover on his way to Rome; and finally throughout the 1780s and early 1790s, when he was already the celebrated author of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Gibbon recorded each of his stays, and while mentioning what he read and whom he met, he remained largely silent on the cultural settings of the town he came to call home. Recent discoveries in private archives allow for a much richer understanding of Gibbon’s encounter with Lausanne and his engagement with local debates, scholarly and political. The reconstruction of Gibbon’s Swiss experience sheds, in turn, new light on the variety and intensity of Lausanne’s cultural life, explaining why the city came to be known in the following century as the ‘ville de Gibbon’.

A wine reception will follow the lecture in the Grove Auditorium, and the lecture will be preceded by a colloquium, from 14:00-16:00, in the Summer Common Room.

For more information please visit:
www.magd.ox.ac.uk/alumni-event/george-rousseau-lecture-edward-gibbon-and-lausanne

Colleagues and students are welcome to attend the lecture, the colloquium, or both but registration is required.