Culture, Art & Heritage · Science

Saving a fading history

5 June 2023Photos and text: Franck Chapolard29 images

Sauvegarde d’une histoire qui s’efface

01 / 29 · 5 June 2023Franck Chapolard / Collectif DR

Located in the 2nd arrondissement since 2001, the Lyon Municipal Archives (AML) hold more than 17 linear km of documents, including 455 meters of documents dating from before 1789. Among the registers, libraries, photographs and audiovisual media preserved there, the oldest is the record of a consular election dated 1294. The need for restoration is therefore pressing. This is why the team assigned to bookbinding, made up of 2 people, is training in both preventive conservation and the restoration of documents, some of which have been badly worn by time. The head of the restoration workshop, Béatrice Bert, and her colleague Julie Pétrolli worked for a week on a geometric plan from 1810. A painstaking but essential task to keep alive and accessible the history that nearly two million Lyon residents share.

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