The advent of Protestantism with 17th century Huguenot refugees brought Geneva spirituality and social reform but also made it rich. From watchmaking to publishing, this lakeside city emerged as a global centre for talent and capital.
Ever since Geneva’s International Museum of the Reformation re-opened in April 2023 following a complete overhaul of its 18th-century premises in the heart of the Old Town, it has brought new cultural and economic awareness to what Geneva represents globally.
Far from being a stodgy holdout on Calvinism and Protestantism, the museum offers a highly interactive, colorful, and dynamic presentation with paintings, documents, and artefacts - including one of Geneva’s first timepieces - that show how the Reformation in all its forms has shaped the world for over five centuries.
Leading up to International Geneva today
The Geneva International Museum of the Reformation
“The purpose of the museum is to establish a historical site for bringing together everything we can find from museums and private collections not only in Switzerland, but across the globe, ever since the Reformation was first adopted on 21 May 1536 to the present,” explained museum director Gabriel de Montmollin, a thoughtful theologian, journalist, and former International Red Cross delegate.
As a 16th-century movement challenging the authority of the Roman Catholic Church, the Reformation opened a schism within Christianity, favoring direct access to the Bible. Leading theologians like Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli, and Jean Calvin encouraged Bible translations into local languages, democratizing faith and laying the foundation for new communities. Geneva soon became a nexus for Protestantism, shaping not only religion but also commerce, education, culture, and craftsmanship - especially watchmaking.
“The purpose of the museum is to explore all aspects of the Reformation, whether positive or negative, and how Protestantism has influenced societies around the world, from England and Holland to Indonesia, Korea, and Zimbabwe - and in domains such as learning, culture, commerce, publishing, politics, and of course, watchmaking," says de Montmollin.
The International Museum of the Reformation in the Old Town of Geneva
International Museum of the Reformation
Located in an early 18th century building next to the Old Town’s St Pierre Cathedral, de Montmollin maintains that the last they wanted to do was focus only on religion. With over 800 million Protestants worldwide, this movement continues to shape societies globally. De Montmollin’s own family heritage has close Protestant ties including a strong winemaking background, but also ancestors such as David-François de Montmollin, an 18th century Anglican and the first French-speaking priest to arrive in Quebec.
Taking Global Geneva on a personal tour, de Montmollin emphasizes the museum's focus on relevance, diversity, and color, not just religion. With 340 works on display, visitors can trace the Reformation’s far-reaching influence. These include five original Bibles from the 16th century, notably the famed Geneva Bible, sometimes known as the “Breeches Bible” and predecessor to the King James version.
Translated by Scottish reformer John Knox and published in 1560, the Geneva Bible was used by leading literary and political figures such as William Shakespeare, Oliver Cromwell, and John Donne. It was also one of several Bibles carried by the Pilgrim Fathers to America on the Mayflower in 1642, while its frontispiece served as inspiration for Benjamin Franklin’s design of the Great Seal of the United States.
Demonstrating the impact of Protestantism worldwide
Geneva International Museum of the Reformation
“Our goal is to present the history of Protestantism through the centuries right up to today with all that is happening in the world,” says de Montmollin. As with Luther and Calvin, but also ordinary people today, “everyone has their own view of what Reform is supposed to mean…everyone has their own story,” he adds. “A lot of visitors come away surprised once they walk through the doors and realize that this is not your conventional museum about religion, but something highly relevant to wherever they come from.”
The exhibition points to different aspects, such as why the Wars of Religion in France – eight of them – occurred involving 20 million Catholics and one million Protestants. Unlike Germany or Switzerland which were not encumbered by royalty completely dependent on the Church for survival, the French king had no option but to embrace Catholicism. “If he hadn’t, the entire system would have collapsed,” explains de Montmollin, who as a youth was heavily involved with Taizé, a protestant Christian community which often comes across as a mix of Woodstock and a thought-provoking spiritual retreat.
The St Bartholomew Massacre in Paris
Beaux Arts Museum Lausanne
Among the items on display is a copy of a famous painting (the original is at Beaux Arts Museum of Lausanne) of the St. Bartholomew Massacre by painter François Dubois, who may have been present at the time, depicting in intricate detail the slaughter of Huguenots in Paris in August 1572. The painting itself is paired with an audio-visual App giving an imaginary voice to what happened by Gaspard II de Coligny, a renowned protestant French admiral hated by the Catholics at the French court who was thrown out of the window and beheaded.
Temple de Paradis by Jean Perrissin
Musee Protestant, France
Then there is the The Temple of Paradise, a 16th-century oil painting by Jean Perrissin, vividly portraying everyday Protestant life with a pastor preaching as children read, men talk amongst themselves and women sit in front looking everywhere but at the pulpit. The only living thing paying any attention, it seems, is a dog.
While 40 percent of visitors are Swiss, including a lot of young people, Americans are the second largest group given the relevance of the museum to North American Protestantism, followed by English, Dutch, Germans, and South Koreans. While it is easy to wander through the museum’s diverse and well-presented collection, du Montmollin strongly recommends that visitors take one of its audio tours, now offered in 14 different languages such as French, English, Mandarin, Russian, and Ukrainian. People can also use their Smartphones to click on select paintings and documents for short, visual presentations that make everything alive.
Visitors exploring the past...
Geneva International Museum of the Reformation
Geneva's world-renowned watchmaking tradition is deeply rooted in Calvinist values. After fleeing persecution in France, Jean Calvin settled in Geneva and imposed strict moral codes - including an obsession with punctuality, which became a hallmark Swiss trait. His 4,000 sermons emphasized discipline, influencing social and economic behaviors, including the need for precise timekeeping.
Jean Calvin whose banning of ostentatious jewellery launched Geneva's luxury watch industry
WIKIPEDIA
As depicted in select paintings and drawings, Calvin proved to be an engaging speaker with an ascetic, thin look mainly, apparently, because he often forgot to eat. Originally a humanist lawyer, Calvin quickly became an influential if not controversial figure seeking to impose his austere, workaholic approach. At the same time, he introduced new forms of participatory governance influenced by republican ideals and social discipline. Unusual, too, women enjoyed certain freedoms such as the right to own property and engage with trade. Equally crucial, Calvin promoted education, technological innovation and economic growth, but there were also downsides.
"To kill a man is not to protect a doctrine. It is to kill a man. "
— Sebastian Castellio
Certain hardline approaches led to the burning at the stake of Michael Servetus, together with his banned books. A Spanish theologian, Servetus was considered heretic by both Catholics and Protestants because he did not believe in the Holy Trinity. According to de Montmollin, Calvin allegedly suggested that it might prove more humane to guillotine Servetus rather than have him painfully incinerated.
Such forms of repression shocked the more moderate reformists, such as Frenchman Sebastian Castellio, also a theologian and one of the first proponents of religious tolerance and freedom of conscience, who made the point that: “To kill a man is not to protect a doctrine. It is to kill a man.”
Geneva and Calvin
Geneva International Museum of the Reformation
It was during this period, too, that Protestant fundamentalists sought to propagate their hardline views through books, tracts, pamphlets and other forms of ‘hate’ communication. “It is important to understand that what happened during the Reformation was not much different than what is happening today with deliberate disinformation,” says de Montmollin.
As depicted by the damaged head of a bishop and other artefacts, such approaches were not unlike the Taliban or ISIS with deliberate efforts to eliminate idolatry as sacrilegious by smashing or disfiguring statues, paintings and other human forms in churches.
In 1541, Calvin imposed the anti-sumptuary laws banning of jewellery as being too ostentatious. No longer could people wear gold and diamond ornaments thus threatening the livelihoods of hundreds of highly qualified craftsmen. The decision left the city’s diamond and jewellery artisans utterly perplexed. What were they now supposed to do?
The Huguenots, however, many of whom had brought with them their high-quality watchmaking skills, stepped in. Unopposed by Calvin, who considered timepieces acceptable thus assuring respect for being on time, the jewellers simply continued to produce luxury works of art disguised as clocks and watches.
The Geneva watch industry: jewellery that keeps time
Patek Philippe Museum
“Basically, these artisans exploited a legal loophole by refocusing their endeavours on the production of timepieces, which Calvin considered acceptable,” said de Montmollin with a smile. “This was because of his obsession with being on time, now very much a Swiss trait…People found themselves admonished even if they were only five minutes late, which he considered rude. So watches filled this gap.”
At the same time, Geneva’s artisans produced highly decorative timepieces, in effect, a new form of jewellery, but because it stressed precision timekeeping, which Calvin considered acceptable.
Watch in the form of a crucifix but worn like a piece of jewellery
Geneva International Museum of the Reformation
Of enormous interest to collectors is one of the first pocket watches to be produced in Geneva in 1640 by Jean Rousseau, the son of a Huguenot refugee who arrived in Geneva in 1549. The great-grandfather of Jean-Jacques Rousseau – all the Rousseaus right up to the father of the Genevan philosopher were watchmakers – the artisan made the watch in the form of crucifix so that it could be worn on one’s collar, just like a piece of jewellery.
Geneva’s new horological creations quickly evolved into a highly refined industry surviving both ups and downs over five centuries assuring the city’s renown in 2025 as the world’s watchmaking capital.
The city's Protestant refugees not only came to the rescue with their watchmaking skills but contributed to new economic sectors. Through their commercial trade networks, these French exiles facilitated the innovative creation of precision timepieces, such as the perfection of watch mechanisms but also the establishment of professional guilds. By the late 16th and 17th centuries, Geneva watches were being exported all over Europe and the Ottoman Empire.
The Huguenots introduced other luxury industries such as silk weaving and production of fine textiles, while through their protestant contacts they developed the book trade as well as banking, bringing increased wealth, diversity of creativity, and a growing population.
Geneva quickly emerged as centre for high-quality education, knowledge, philanthropy and business, including the arrival of 60 printers from Paris establishing one publishing operation per every 300 inhabitants, producing religious books and tracts to spread the Reformation across Europe and beyond. Its promotion of literacy and precision in thinking led to more sophisticated theological training eventually resulting in the creation of the Academy of Geneva.
Letter written i Calvin's hand
Geneva International Museum of the Reformation
“In many ways, it is because of this background that Geneva now has the International Red Cross, which was inspired by Henri Dunant, a 19th century protestant humanitarian and businessman who believed in serving humanity,” de Montmollin explains. This is also why the city now brands itself as ‘international Geneva’ with all its UN agencies and other international organizations while Switzerland serves as a unique world "knowledge hub."
Protestants today represent the second largest Christian group but are divided into denominations, such as Anglicans, Methodists, Lutherans, Evangelicals and Pentecostals, some highly conservative, others less so. Overall, however, as the museum seeks to demonstrate, the Reformation fomented trailblazing influences across the globe from the arrival of the Pilgrim Fathers in North America i to anti-apartheid demonstrations led by Anglican Bishop Demond Tutu in South Africa during the 1980s.
Protestatism is also about resistance
Geneva International Museum of the Reformation
Toward the end of the exhibition, for example, there is a display depicting 21 randomly chosen known Protestants, such as German resistance activist Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was executed in the final days of the Third Reich by the Nazis to Iain Paisley, the right-wing Northern Ireland militant leader who eventually used his beliefs to embrace peace, even if reluctantly, with his Catholic rivals. Featured, too, is President Woodrow Wilson, who helped found the League of Nations in Geneva, but who proved an apologist for American slavery and discouraged the admittance of Black Americans to Princeton University, his alma mater.
Ending with a contemporary Art Brut exhibition, the museum invites visitors to reflect on the past and present of Protestantism, asking critical questions about freedom, tolerance, and innovation. “The whole point is for visitors to reflect on these individuals to see how they influenced their own worlds,” de Montmollin concludes.
Why it matters...a movement that influence the world.
Geneva International Museum of the Reformation
Whether you’re a horology enthusiast, a history buff, or someone interested in Geneva’s global role, the International Museum of the Reformation offers a captivating journey into how watchmaking, humanitarianism, and faith intertwine in shaping modern Geneva - and the world.
Global Geneva editor Edward Girardet is a Swiss-American foreign correspondent and author who has reported wars, humanitarian crises and global themes for more than 40 years.