Palace of the Popes

The word conclave means "with a key", and this is the building that produced it. When the cardinals shut in here failed to elect a pope for nearly three years, the people of Viterbo locked them in, cut their rations, and finally took the roof off the hall. The election of 1268-1271 ran 1,006 days, the longest in the history of the Church, and it ended under open sky. Six years later the palace killed a pope outright: John XXI was fatally injured when the ceiling of his newly built study came down on him. For twenty-four years this was where the papacy lived, and the hall where all of it happened still stands over the piazza.

Visit if you:

• want the room where the rules of papal election were forced into existence
• are interested in thirteenth-century civic architecture at its most theatrical -- the loggia is a stage for blessing a crowd
• like buildings that overhang a valley on buttresses
• care about the papacy outside Rome, which it was for a quarter-century

Skip it if you:

• are expecting furnished papal apartments: the interest here is the architecture and what happened in it, not the fittings
• are coming on a Tuesday between November and March, when the complex is closed
• want to see it without the cathedral -- the palace is visited through the Museo del Colle del Duomo as part of one monumental complex

This is a working monumental complex on the Colle del Duomo -- the palace, the cathedral and the sacristy together -- and the cathedral is a church before it is an exhibit. The rules differ between the parts for that reason: dogs are admitted on a lead to the palace and the museum, but must be carried or in a carrier in the cathedral and the sacristy.

The loggia is the fragile thing and it does not look it. Seven openings carried on six slender doubled colonnettes, roofless and exposed for seven and a half centuries, with crests and reliefs cut into stone that has weathered the whole time. It is also the most photographed point in Viterbo, which concentrates every visitor in the one place the building is thinnest.

A wing of this palace collapsed in 1277 and killed a pope. The buttressing over the FAUL valley is not decorative, and the barriers along the loggia and the stair are structural judgements rather than crowd control.

Viterbo is a provincial capital that most visitors to Lazio skip entirely, and the Colle del Duomo complex is run by a small cultural services company with regional support rather than by a national institution. The ticket is a meaningful share of what keeps it open.

The Palace of the Popes is part of the Colle del Duomo monumental complex at Viterbo and is visited through the Museo del Colle del Duomo, at Piazza S. Lorenzo 8. The visit is run by Archeoares snc, with support from the Regione Lazio.

From April to October the complex opens every day, 10.00 to 19.00. From November to March it is closed on Tuesdays and runs 10.00-13.00 and 15.00-18.00 from Monday to Friday, and 10.00-18.00 on Saturday and Sunday. Last entry is one hour before closing, and the complex is closed on 24 and 25 December. The museum tariff is 3 euro; the full range of tariffs is published by Archeoares.

Dogs may enter the Palazzo dei Papi and the museum on a lead, and are admitted to the cathedral and the sacristy carried or in a carrier. Contact is by email at info@museocolledelduomo.com, WhatsApp on 3930916060 or telephone on 800 266 300. (Hours and the museum tariff as published by the operator on 8 October 2026 -- confirm before travelling.)

April to October is the straightforward half of the year at the Palace of the Popes: the complex opens every day, 10.00 to 19.00. From November to March it closes on Tuesdays and splits the day -- 10.00 to 13.00 and 15.00 to 18.00 from Monday to Friday, with a continuous 10.00 to 18.00 at weekends, so a winter weekend is actually the better winter visit. Last entry is an hour before closing in every season, and the complex is shut on 24 and 25 December. For the building itself, the loggia faces the piazza and takes the light; the Sala del Conclave is lit through narrow two-light windows and is dim at any hour, which is more or less how the cardinals had it. Viterbo is an hour and a half from Rome and does not run on a tourist season, so crowding is not the variable here -- the timetable is.