Vienne (French: [vjɛn] ⓘ; Arpitan: Vièna) is a town in southeastern France, located 35 kilometres (22 mi) south of Lyon, at the confluence of the Gère and the Rhône.

A Roman temple, circus pyramid and theatre (where the annual Jazz à Vienne is held), as well as museums (archaeological, textile industry) and notable Catholic buildings, make tourism an important part of the town's economy.

Regional dioceses were created during the First Tetrarchy, 293–305, or possibly later as some recent studies suggest in 313, but no later than the Verona List, which is securely dated to June 314.

One is the Early Imperial Temple of Augustus and Livia, a rectangular peripteral building of the Corinthian order, erected by the emperor Claudius, which owes its survival, like the Maison Carrée at Nîmes, to being converted to a church soon after the Theodosian decrees and later rededicated as "Notre Dame de Vie".

[8] The vestiges of a temple to Cybèle were discovered in 1945 when a new hospital was built on Mount Salomon and the Ancien Hôpital in the center of town was torn down.

About 450, Vienne's bishops became archbishops, several of whom played an important cultural role, e.g. Mamertus, who established Rogation pilgrimages, and the poet, Avitus (498–518).

In 1349, Humbert II sold his rights to the Dauphiné to France, but the archbishop stood firm and Vienne was not included in this sale.

[4] Jean de Bernin drew up a municipal charter (charte des franchises) for Vienne around 1225 (including provisions for a town council).

[4] Between 1482 and 1527, French kings appointed four Italians as archbishop of Vienne in succession, beginning with Angelo Cato [fr], a doctor and astrologer.

The last of these, Scaramuccia Trivulzio, died in Rome before he could take possession of the archbishopric, which allowed for the confirmation of Pierre Palmier [fr], elected by the canons of Saint-Maurice in an act of resistance to the royal practice of appointing foreign prelates.

[14] As a result of a 1540 printers' strike in Lyon, Michael Servetus' publisher moved to Vienne,[15] where Pierre Palmier had invited his former teacher to come live.

[24] Ory recommended that he be found guilty of heresy, which was done on 17 June, when he was condemned to be burned at the stake, along with his books, in a then-undeveloped area of the Saint-Martin neighbourhood.

[4] Train stations were built in Vienne in 1855 and in Estressin in 1875 providing freight transport to the textile and metallurgy industries, which took advantage of the water power in the Gère valley.

[26] In 1875, the State signed a contract with Vienne for the establishment of a cavalry regiment, necessitating the construction of a barracks from 1882 to 1886 in what became known as the Quartier Saint-Germain in 1887.

When the last military regiment was disbanded in 1990, the former barracks was transformed into a business center, with some of the buildings conserved, such as the riding academy, which became a concert hall in 2018.

Today, the building houses a lapidary museum that holds a Junon head and a statue of Tutela, the city's protective divinity.