Nancy - Rue Saint-Jean

Around 1050 Count Gerard, Duke of Lorraine, built a castle here called Nanciacum, from which the town was to develop. In 1218 troops of Emperor Frederick II., fighting Theobald I, Count of Champagne, pillaged and looted the town. Rebuilt and surrounded by a wall, Nancy was granted city rights in 1265 and became the capital of the duchy in the following decades.

In 1477, Charles the Bold of Burgundy failed in the Battle of Nancy in his attempt to seize the city - and died during the battle.

Nancy belonged to the Duchy of Lorraine and thus to the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation until the 18th century. Finally, the Duchy of Lorraine came to the Kingdom of France in an exchange between the House of Habsburg and the French King in the 18th century. Louis XV awarded Lorraine in 1737 to the deposed Polish king, Stanislaus I Leszczyński, who ruled the duchy from Nancy as Duke of Lorraine. After his death, in 1766, Nancy and the duchy finally fell to the French crown.

Since around 1900, Nancy is known for Art Nouveau. Emile Gallé initiated the "School of Nancy" a kind of alliance between extraordinary art and industrial production. Glasswork, ceramics, furniture, ironwork were designed - and houses like this one in Rue Saint-Jean were built.