Discover Palace of the Popes

The Palazzo dei Papi is the building Viterbo is known for, standing beside the cathedral on piazza San Lorenzo. It exists because the papal curia moved here in 1257 under Alexander IV, driven out of Rome by the hostility of the commune and by persistent street violence: the former bishop's palace was enlarged to give the popes a residence fit for the purpose.

The Palace of the Popes at Viterbo makes its argument with one gesture, and the gesture is the loggia. Everything else about the building is defensive in temper -- a massive block, square merlons along the top of the wall, buttresses hauling it out over the FAUL valley, a hall lit by narrow two-light windows with loopholes above them. Then, at the right-hand end, the wall opens into an arcade so slender it looks structurally improbable, and that is the point: it was built so that a pope could step out of a fortified audience chamber and be seen blessing a crowd.

The arcade itself is a piece of geometrical cleverness rather than a repeated bay. Three round arches and two half-arches span the opening, and three further arches are interwoven with them, so the eye reads seven pointed and trilobed openings carried on six doubled colonnettes. The structure says round-arched Romanesque; the effect says Gothic. That ambiguity is the building's date -- the 1260s, in central Italy, with both languages available.

The relationship with the Duomo beside it completes the composition. The palace does not compete with the cathedral for the piazza; it stands alongside and hands the square to it, and the two are read as one monumental group.

It was an enlargement, not a new building. The palace that stands here is the bishop's palace of Viterbo, extended into a residence adequate for a pope after Alexander IV moved the Papal Curia here in 1257 -- a move forced by the hostility of the Roman commune and the nobles under the senator Brancaleone degli Andalò, and by constant urban violence in Rome.

The city built it, not the Church. The work was ordered and overseen by the Capitano del Popolo, Raniero Gatti, of an influential Viterbo family. What he had built, with the consent of Clement IV, was a great audience hall communicating with a loggia raised on a barrel vault above the city street. It was probably finished around 1266, with the wide staircase to the piazza completed in 1267.

The loggia is dated 1267 and its patron is disputed. The Italian account credits it to the Capitano del Popolo Andrea Gatti, during the pontificate of Clement IV; the English account treats the works as Raniero's. Both agree on the family and the year.

A new wing collapsed and killed the pope. On 11 May 1277 part of a recently built wing of the palace came down and fatally injured John XXI -- his study, by the English account. It is an unusually direct demonstration of how fast this building had gone up.

The building work continued for two more centuries, elsewhere on the hill. Around 1454 Nicholas V commissioned a bath palace at Viterbo, and construction at the Bagno del Papa continued through several later pontificates: the Vatican accounts record payments for building at the bath palace under Calixtus III, Paul II and Sixtus IV. There is also evidence that Pius II added a western wing.

Is this where the word "conclave" comes from?

This is where the practice does. The election of 1268-1271 held in the Sala del Conclave was the first and the longest in the history of the Church -- 1,006 days -- and it ended after the roof of the hall was removed. It produced Gregory X.

Did a pope really die here?

Yes. John XXI was fatally injured when part of a recently built wing of the palace collapsed; the Italian account dates the fall to 11 May 1277 and the English one identifies the room as his study.

How long was Viterbo the seat of the papacy?

Twenty-four years, from 1257 to 1281. Alexander IV moved the Curia here, and Martin IV left almost immediately after his election, for Orvieto.

Who built it?

The city, not the Church. The bishop's palace was enlarged for the popes under the Capitano del Popolo Raniero Gatti, of an influential Viterbo family, and finished around 1266; the staircase and the loggia are both dated 1267, the loggia credited by the Italian account to Andrea Gatti.

Can I visit the palace on its own?

It is visited through the Museo del Colle del Duomo and forms part of the Colle del Duomo monumental complex together with the cathedral and the sacristy.

When is it closed?

On Tuesdays from November to March, and on 24 and 25 December. From April to October it opens every day.