The Médard Museum

Opposite Notre-Dame-du-Lac church, a building dating from the early 18th century houses the Musée Médard.

Dedicated to Lunel's written heritage, this museum preserves the collection of 5,000 rare and precious works from the Médard collection, bequeathed by Louis Médard (1768-1841) to his fellow citizens of Lunel. The museum opened in December 2013.
It includes manuscripts from the Middle Ages, a large paper copy of Buffon's Histoire naturelle des oiseaux, La Fontaine's Fables in the Fermiers Généraux edition illustrated by Oudry, the copy of the 1791 Constitution that belonged to Louis XVI...

After 18 months of restoration work, the former Hôtel Paulet, successively Hôtel de Ville and municipal library, becomes the Musée Médard.
Built around the exceptional cabinet of bibliophile Louis Médard, the museum is first and foremost a place to learn about books, the history of its collections and the arts and crafts associated with the written heritage.
From the municipal archives, to the collection of 5,000 books bequeathed by Louis Médard, to the illustrated plates of Buffon's Birds, over 600 m² are dedicated to the discovery of books and their history.

Lunel's digital library has made its appearance on the digital landscape with the launch of a digital portal to discover and showcase the town's written heritage and collections: www.museemedard.fr

This new cultural tool is first and foremost a digital heritage library. This database incorporates the cataloguing of the almost 5,000 volumes of rare and ancient works held by the Musée Médard.

In addition to digitizing the documents themselves using an appropriate digital scanner, the city will gradually enrich this database by making the particularities of these works accessible. For example, users can view views of the bindings, notes by the famous Lunellois bibliophile, autograph documents added to the books, relics, special prints... In short, the entire written heritage bequeathed by Jean-Louis Médard is just a click away!

In the age of the Internet, the Ville de Lunel is paying tribute to Jean-Louis Médard by creating this digital portal.

Médard declared, preferring to bequeath his collection to his hometown and compatriots rather than to Montpellier's Musée Fabre: "To my compatriots, it was always my intention to dedicate my books to you. The condition I imposed has been fulfilled: your college has been opened, and my collection, which includes many classics, will be useful to teachers and students alike.

Louis Médard would be delighted to see that his works are now accessible to all at www.museemedard.fr and in the museum partly dedicated to him.

Coordonnées :

Place des Martyrs de la Résistance
34400 LUNEL
Tel: 33 (0)4 67 87 83 95
museemedard@ville-lunel.fr
www.museemedard.fr

Open Wednesday to Friday, 2pm to 6pm and Saturday, 10am to 6pm.