It seems that as far back as the middle of the Fourteenth Century the Emperor Charles IV proposed to found a university, but other affairs choked the good seed. The idea was revived by Cardinal Jean de Brogny, Bishop of Geneva, who died in 1462. Two years after his death the Conseil Général passed an order for establishing a public school on the Place below the Monastery of the Frères Mineurs de Rive. There happened to be living at that time a rich and generous old merchant of a noble family, named François de Versonnex. He had already founded two hospitals, but the plan of a public school appealed to him, and, in January, 1429, he built an edifice ninety-four feet long and thirty-four feet wide, near the church of those Frères Mineurs and presented it to the city. Instructions in grammar, logic, rhetoric and the other liberal arts—philosophy, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music—was to be gratuitous: his only condition was that the pupils should every morning kneel before the altar and repeat an Ave Maria and a Pater Noster for the repose of the donor’s soul.
This became known as the “Grande Eschole.” It had an ample garden, stretching down to the lake, with plenty of room for the boys to play. After more than a century, in spite of repairs, it became uninhabitable, and in 1535, the year before Bonivard returned to Geneva, the Council ordered the school to be removed to the Couvent des Cordeliers de Rive (now commemorated in the Rue des Cordeliers), a building which since the Thirteenth Century had occupied a site on the shore. It was torn down in 1769 to make room for a granary.
There must have been much cultivation in those days in Geneva. Bonivard speaks about the learned men he knew personally or by reputation. He, himself, was versed in Latin, Italian and German. He was the founder of the University Library, which now contains more than one hundred thousand books and fifteen hundred or more manuscripts. Under Antoine Saulnier or Sonier, who was appointed to direct the school in 1536, at a salary of one hundred écus d’or sol, equivalent to four hundred and forty florins, it made rapid progress and began to attract pupils from abroad. But Sonier was Calvin’s appointee and Calvin’s enemies were then in power; about that time they succeeded in banishing both Calvin and Farel, and they robbed Sonier of his two best assistants. Then Sonier summoned the famous Mathurin Cordier of Bordeaux, the author of a Latin book still in use. The Council went on heckling Sonier and he resigned and went to Lausanne. He helped found the University there.
Of course the school then degenerated. Some of the masters whipped children so brutally that it drew blood. When Calvin was recalled and again took command, he engaged Sébastien Chatillon of Nantua, an elegant Latinist and possessed also of Greek and Hebrew, but soon quarrelled with him, causing him to resign. Chatillon afterwards taught Latin at Bâle but almost starved there.
In 1550, Calvin discovered Louis Enoch of Issoudun, in Berri. He was Regent for seven years. He was made a bourgeois and installed as a minister. When the school was reorganized as a college in 1559 he became its Regent. The buildings were deathly, however, and even Enoch could not live in them. Finally, when the Perrinists, Calvin’s bitterest enemies, were defeated, he saw his chance. At the top of the Rue Verdaine was the Hospital of the Bourg-de-Four, which as the domus hospitalis de foro veteri had been founded in the Thirteenth Century by a member of an ancient and noble family. Attached to it was a garden. Above the Hospital on the hill rising steeply from Rive to Saint-Antoine there were what were called Hutins Bolomier,—or hillocks,—on which the vines were cultivated. This was to be the new site. But just then war broke out between France and Spain. Geneva was in a panic, expecting to be attacked, because Philippe II had vowed that he would exterminate the heretics. Public prayers were offered and the citizens were encouraged to defend themselves to the last gasp. Bern, which had been unwilling to renew its alliance with Geneva at this common danger, hastened to join forces. Geneva was safe.
In 1558, at Calvin’s demand, a commission was empowered to study the question, and, after due deliberation, it was decided to make the change. The preliminary work consisted in reducing the height of the hill. The soil was carted down to the Pré de Rive. But to get the buildings finished was a heart-breaking undertaking. There were all kinds of delays. They even had a strike among the workmen: the carpenters demanded eight sous a day! But the Council refused to grant the increase, which they considered exorbitant, since victuals were cheap. There was lack of money. In 1559 the Republic had a revenue all told of only two hundred thousand florins. They decided that the product of all fines should be handed over to the College. A woman convicted of faux aunage (probably in measuring cloth of her weaving) was obliged to pay twenty-five crowns. The venerable former syndic Phillipin for having spoken evil of the Seigneurie had to pay twenty-five crowns. Jean Roche, for having printed at Lyon Calvin’s Institution contrary to the privileges granted to Antoine Calvin, was fined a hundred crowns. People were urged to remember the institution in their wills. In 1561 the Council by an act of heroic renunciation resolved to forego the annual banquet and devote to the fund the hundred florins it would cost. Just as happens now, materials were not forthcoming on time. One day tiles were lacking and there was great danger that the rains would come before the roof was covered. But it was finished in 1562, and four years later a fountain was installed as much to embellish the College as to furnish drinking-water. In 1569 elms and linden-trees were set out to shade the grounds.
The two big buildings, arranged as it was called à la mode de potence, that is at right angles, and surmounted by a big roof, all in Italian Renaissance style of architecture, were the pride of the City, and still not much changed reflect credit on the old Reformers.
Our friend the professor took us to the front of the main building and pointed out to us the peristyle colonnade, with its three massive pillars supporting the four arches in pure Roman style, and he called our attention to the ancient inscriptions over the principal entrance: the first in Hebrew, which he said meant “The Fear of the Lord is the Beginning of Wisdom;” the second in Greek, which I could almost make out myself though the letters were queer:—“Christ has become for us Wisdom by the Will of the Father;” the third indecipherable, but he said that it read originally “For the Wisdom that comes from on high is pure, peaceable and full of mercy.”
He showed us the external stairway leading to what was formerly the rooms of the principal and of some of the professors, and the admirable balustrade of wrought iron, and pointed with pardonable pride to the bas relief in yellow marble over the first floor door. He said it was attributed to the famous French sculptor Jean Goujon, who belonged to the Reformed Church and was in Geneva in 1560. It represents two winged women, one the Genius of Study, the other the Genius of War and between them the escutcheon of the City. During the French occupation it was mutilated, but the eagle and the key can be made out.
The professor took us up to the second floor of the main building, which offers a superb view of the lake, the Jura with their rock-ribbed summits, the snowy Alps of Savoy. In those days they did not much believe in light, physically or theologically; the windows are small and the big rooms seemed rather gloomy. He told us that at first the City was too poor or too penurious to furnish glass for them, and when the students petitioned for glass they were recommended to fit them out themselves with oiled paper panes. Neither was there any way of heating them, and the professors had to bring braziers filled with hot coals to melt out their lectures. Finally a violent bise came down the lake and blew the rooms inside out; it did so much damage that the Council, in self-defence, ordered glass put in.