Today, the town is a regional commercial and industrial center specialised in food industry. Tourism is also a major part of the town's economy. Indeed, the important number and diversity of its historical monuments but also its annual jazz festival (July) makes it a popular tourist destination.
The oppidum of the Allobroges became a Roman colony about 47 BC under Julius Caesar, but the Allobroges managed to expel them: the exiles then founded the colony of Lugdunum (today's Lyon). Herod Archelaus was exiled here in 6 AD. Under the early Empire Vienna (as the Romans called it--not to be confused with today's Vienna [German Wien, which the Romans called Vindobona) regained all its former privileges as a Roman colony. Later it became a provincial capital. In 257 Postumus was proclaimed emperor here of a short-lived Gallo-Roman empire with its capital at Trier. On the bank of the Gre are traces of the ramparts of the old Roman city, and on Mont Pipet (east of the town) are the remains of a Roman theatre, while the ruined 13th century castle there was built on Roman footings. Several ancient aqueducts and traces of Roman roads can still be seen.
Two Roman monuments at Vienne are outstanding. One is the temple of Augusta and Livia, a rectangular building of the Corinthian order, erected by the emperor Claudius, which owes its survival, like the Maison Carrée at Nîmes, to being converted to a church soon after the Theodosian decrees as "Notre Dame de Vie." In it the local Festival of Reason at the time of the Reign of Terror. The other is the Plan de l'Aiguille, a truncated pyramid resting on a portico with four arches, from the Roman circus. Many popular theories have been advanced as to what this structure was intended for, even the legend of Pontius Pilate has made this his tomb.
Christian Vienne
The provincial capital was an important early seat of a bishop, the legendary first bishop said to have been Crescens, a disciple of Paul. Certainly there were Christians here in 177 when the churches of Vienne and Lyon addressed a letter to those of Asia and Phrygia and mention is made of the deacon of Vienne (Eusebius of Caesarea, Church History). The first historical bishop was Verus, who was present at the Council of Arles in 314. About 450 Vienne's bishop became an archbishop (dissolved in 1790) and its archbishops disputed with those of Lyon the title of "Primate of All the Gauls".
King Charles II the Bald assigned the district in 869 to CountBoso of Provence, who in 879 proclaimed himself king of Provence and was buried on his death in 887 in the cathedral church of St Maurice. Vienne then continued to form part of the kingdom of Provence and then of Arles till in 1032 it reverted to the Holy Roman Empire, but the real rulers were the archbishops of Vienne, whose rights were repeatedly recognized but who had serious local rivals in the counts of Albon, later Dauphins of the neighboring countship of the Viennois. In 1349 the reigning Dauphin sold his rights to the Dauphiné to France, but the archbishop stood firm and Vienne was not included in this sale. The archbishop finally surrendered their territorial powers to France in 1449. Gui de Bourgogne, who was archbishop 1090–1119, was pope from 1119 to 1124 as Callixtus II.
The early Romanesquebasilica church of St Peter belonged to an ancient Benedictine abbey and was rebuilt in the 9th century with tall square piers and two ranges of windows in the tall aisles and a notable porch.
The Gothic former cathedral of St Maurice was built in many campaigns over a long period, between 1052 and 1533. It is a basilica, with three aisles, but no apse or transepts. It is 315 ft. in length, 118 ft. wide and 89 in height. The most striking portion is the west front, which rises majestically from a terrace overhanging the Rhône. But the sculpural decoration was badly damaged by the Protestants in 1562, during the Wars of Religion. [Vienne Cathedral:[1],[2]
The Romanesque church of St André en Bas was the church of a second Benedictine monastery, and became the chapel of the earlier kings of Provence. It was rebuilt in 1152, in the later Romanesque style.
![[1]](http://www.vienne-tourisme.com/imgs/illustres_inside/imgs_decouverte/cathedrale.jpg){kind=link}
![[2]](http://document.linternaute.com/document/image/550/villes-cathedrale-interieur-vienne-autriche-9842.jpg){kind=link}