Montpellier, the capital of the French department of Hérault, on the river Lez, 6 miles from the sea and 31 SW. of Nîmes. Pop. (1872) 54,466; (1891) 65,503. Lying near the centre of Languedoc, on the great route from Italy and Provence to Spain, with its seaport at a point offering the shortest land-route not only to all parts of Languedoc, but to north France, Montpellier's position was a highly favourable one during the middle ages. Hence alike its commercial and intellectual importance, and its stormy history, during which it was sometimes independent, and sometimes under the suzerainty of Aragon or Navarre, before finally becoming a possession of the French crown in 1392. Its schools of medicine, law, and arts, developing during the 12th and 13th centuries, were formally constituted a university by a papal bull in 1289, at which time the schools of law and medicine (the latter founded by Arabian physicians) rivalled those of Paris. In the following century Petrarch was a student at the law school, and Arnaud de Villeneuve, the alchemist and physician, was teaching in the medical school. With such a geographical position Montpellier was easily stirred by the Renaissance. Rabelais and Rondelet the anatomist both graduated in medicine in 1537; Casaubon was made Greek professor in 1586. After Rondelet there is a continuity almost unique in the history of science. A pupil of his founded the famous botanic garden (the oldest in France) in 1593; other pupils, Lobel, Clusius, the brothers Bauhin, were highly distinguished amongst the earlier botanists (see BOTANY). At the end of the 17th century (during which Clarendon and Locke had been residents), Magnol again made Montpellier the centre of the science, and reckoned among his pupils Tournefort and the elder De Jussieu. De Candolle also wrote here some of his principal works, and laid out the first botanic garden upon the natural system in 1810. The medical school had also a notable history; and a new period of activity is indicated by the celebration of the sexcentenary of the university (1890), with its reorganisation upon the fullest scale of equipment. The town has also an important picture-gallery and library.
A centre of wine production, upon which its present prosperity depends, Montpellier suffered greatly by the phylloxera; but it was here that the cure of grafting French vines upon American stocks was earliest applied. The new School of Agriculture, chiefly devoted to the practical study of wine and silk culture, is very flourishing. Of the mediæval town little remains, its fortifications and most of its buildings, save the cathedral and the adjoining bishop's palace (which now houses the school of medicine), having been destroyed in the religious wars, in the Revolution, or by municipal improvements. The older streets are crooked and narrow, but afford better shelter from the sun, and from the chilling mistral, than do the modern ones. The chief modern buildings are the theatre and law-courts; but the principal glory of the town is its two great terraces, forming public promenades overlooking the undulating country dotted with innumerable mazels or country cottages, and in the distance the Mediterranean, Cevennes, Pyrenees, and Alps. See Duval Jouve, Montpellier; Aigrefeuille, Histoire de Montpellier (1739; new ed. 1877).