Anagni Cathedral historical timeline

Last updated on October 8, 2026

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1072 Bishop Pietro da Salerno begins the cathedral, funded by the Eastern emperor Michael VII Doukas. The work runs to 1104 and raises the crypt and the church together.
1160 Pope Alexander III excommunicates Frederick Barbarossa here on 24 March. The antipope Victor IV, Frederick II and Manfred are condemned in the same building at other dates -- Anagni is the popes' summer residence through the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and this is where that business is done.
1174 Bernard of Clairvaux is canonised in the cathedral.
1224 Cosma di Jacopo di Lorenzo and his sons Jacopo and Luca begin the crypt's mosaic pavement, finishing it in 1231.
1231 The Cosmati lay the church's own Cosmatesque pavement. On the Italian account the crypt's fresco cycle, begun early in the previous century, is complete by this year.
1250 Bishop Pandolfo rebuilds the interior, replacing the wooden trusses of the nave and transept with Gothic arches. A Romanesque shell now opens into a Gothic-Lombard room.
1255 Clare of Assisi is canonised here.
1263 Vassalletto makes the episcopal throne, the ciborium over the high altar and the mosaic-inlaid paschal column, commissioned by Bishop Landone. The English account dates the ciborium to 1267 instead.
1303 Boniface VIII is seized in rooms adjoining the cathedral through the cloister -- the Outrage of Anagni. Neither the rooms nor the cloister survive.
1938 The bell tower is restored and an iron frame built inside it to carry five bells.

Verified against Wikipedia, October 2026.

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Checked against Wikipedia — The cathedral was built between 1072 and 1104 by Bishop Pietro da Salerno, funded by the munificence of the Eastern emperor Michael VII Doukas, The cathedral is Romanesque, while the interior is Gothic-Lombard after the 1250 restoration by Bishop Pandolfo, who replaced the wooden trusses of the nave and transept with Gothic arches, The cathedral was the site of the pactum anagninum and of the canonisations of Bernard of Clairvaux, Clare of Assisi, Edward the Confessor and St Peter the hermit, and of the excommunications of the antipope Ottaviano Monticelli (Victor IV), Frederick Barbarossa on 24 March 1160, Frederick II and Manfred; the Outrage of Anagni against Boniface VIII took place in adjoining rooms reached through the cloister, now disappeared, Anagni served as the summer residence of the Popes in the 12th and 13th centuries; Bernard of Clairvaux was canonised at the cathedral in 1174 and Clare of Assisi in 1255, and Frederick Barbarossa was excommunicated here in 1160 by Pope Alexander III, The crypt retains its original Cosmatesque pavement, the work of Cosma di Jacopo di Lorenzo and his sons Jacopo and Luca, dated 1224-1231, The church pavement is a mosaic executed in 1231 by the celebrated family of Roman marble-workers, the Cosmati, from whom the adjective cosmatesque comes, In the main apse are three works by Vassalletto dated 1263 -- a mosaic twisted column for the paschal candelabrum, the episcopal cathedra and the ciborium over the altar -- all commissioned by Bishop Landone, The English account dates the ciborium on the main altar to 1267, completed by Vassalletto, The facade is a plain wall with three entrances opening to the east, with a 14th-century fresco of the Madonna enthroned between St Catherine of the Wheel and St Anthony Abbot behind a grate beside the left entrance; the western end has three apses and a stairway, and the Romanesque bell tower is 30 m high with single, double and triple windows, restored in 1938 when an iron frame was installed inside to carry five bells (October 2026).

Anagni Cathedral historical timeline

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