The Catholic Church, which was abolished in Lausanne in 1536, began to be practised among individuals in 1798, and in the new Mercerie church as of 1812, with people of other faiths. Unsatisfied, the Catholics began to build a church on Avenue de l’Université, but a landslide caused irreparable damage to it before its completion. In 1832, the architect Henri Perregaux directed the construction of a new building. Notre-Dame du Valentin therefore became the first Catholic church built in Lausanne after the Reformation.
In 1992, it was elevated to a basilica by Pope Jean-Paul II. It is the largest of the ten Catholic churches in the city. Its neoclassical element is predominant. In 1932, work began to restore and enlarge the church under the direction of architect Fernand Dumas, who made it more metropolitan in its size, giving it a monumental staircase, a peristyle and a steeple 38 metres tall. It is worth a visit to see the beautiful and monumental fresco created in the chancel in 1934 by Gino Severini, an internationally renowned Italian painter.
