The Papal palace of Viterbo was the seat of the papacy for 24 years, from 1257 until 1281. It was erected in its present form by expanding the palace seat of the Episcopal Curia of when Pope Alexander IV, due to the hostility of the people and the Roman bourgeoisie, he decided to transfer the entire seat of the papal Curia here.
From the splendid and famous Loggia dei Papi, with its elegant and harmonious architecture, you enter the large audience hall known as the Aula del Conclave. This is where the first and longest conclave in history took place, that of 1268-1271, which lasted 1006 days.
The Papal Palace is located at the highest point of Viterbo where the ancient Etruscan center once stood, recognizable by some remains of ancient walls.
It is called in this way because it was the seat of the papacy for 24 years, from 1257 until 1281 when Rome had become a dangerous place for the continuous wars between nobles for control of the city. It was Pope Alexander IV who moved the court and the city has hosted around 40 popes with their numerous courts.
At first the residence of the popes was established in Palazzo Alemanni, but later thanks to the captain of the People Andrea Gatti, this sumptuous palace was built in record time right in front of the Cathedral of San Lorenzo. The palace was born from the transformation of the old castle of San Lorenzo built overlooking a rock and with a single access from an Etruscan-Roman bridge.
The works lasted 10 years, between 1257 and 1267 when the access stairway and the loggia were built from where the pope gave his blessing.
From the splendid and famous Loggia dei Papi, with its elegant and harmonious architecture, you enter the large audience hall known as the Aula del Conclave. This is where the first and longest conclave in history took place, that of 1268-1271, which lasted 1006 days.
The word conclave comes from a famous episode when…. He locked the cardinals in the room with a key (from the Latin clave), forcing them to make a decision quickly.
The architectural style of the building is Romanesque-Lombard characterized by its elongated shape with three elegant floors on the side of Piazza San Lorenzo and a medieval fortress aspect on the side overlooking the valley below.
The representative facade is characterized by 6 mullioned windows, corresponding to 6 openings, on the left side of the access door and ends with a regular Guelph battlements.
On the right side is the elegant Gothic-style loggia which has become the symbol of Viterbo. The loggia is located above a large arch under which there are the connecting stairs with the valley. Originally these Gothic-style friezes, with pointed arches open into the sky, were colored
The great hall of the conclave occupies the entire floor and in correspondence with the mullioned windows there are stone seats. When it was not occupied by the conclave, it was the waiting room for the papal apartments
The magnificence of the room, the slender structure of the loggia and the orography of the land have created a set of forces that have created hollows and made the complex stable. So with the pope's return to Rome in 1281, the building suffered collapses and damage until the Council of Trent.
In fact, in the mid-sixteenth century the bishop needed a greater number of assistants and began to restore part of the rooms of the palace of the popes which was transformed into a Renaissance style.
We have to wait until 1897, when the bishop of Viterbo decided to bring the style of the building back to the original Romanesque-Gothic one, however, inserting reinforcing elements in reinforced concrete well integrated with the architectural style.
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