Lycée Masséna
Lycée Masséna stands in Nice as a secondary school and home to higher-education preparatory classes. Italian influences, mosaics, playful rooftops, and a clock tower shape the building you see today.
A Discalced Augustinian convent occupied the site from 1643, before the buildings became a central school after the French occupation of Nice in 1792. The lycée opened in 1812, closed in 1814, became a royal college under the Jesuits in 1820, and returned to lycée status after Nice joined France in 1860. Henri Ebrard led major rebuilding from 1909 to 1931, while the building gained historical-monument protection in 2016 and 2017.
Around 1,675 students study general education or join one of 19 preparatory classes covering literary, economic, commercial, and scientific subjects. Five students executed at Saint-Julien-du-Verdon in 1944 are commemorated each year in the courtyard. At the top, the clock face carries the Latin words “Horas ne numerem nisi serenas”: “I wish to count only the happy hours.”
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Take this page with you
The myTuur app is free, and once you are standing at a spot its story starts by itself.
Spots like this one are the stops myTuur strings into tours through Nice. In the app, each story begins where you stand: walk up to a spot and it starts, read it on screen or listen as you go, then follow the route to the next one.
What is myTuur?
myTuur is a free city-guide app. Its tours are built from spots, and each spot carries a story that starts when you get there, to read or to listen to as you like.