Discover Palazzo di Bonifacio VIII

The building known as the Palazzo del Museo Bonifacio VIII at Anagni is, in fact, the palace of Pope Gregory IX. It has housed a museum dedicated to the Caetani pope since the 1950s, which is where the name comes from -- Boniface VIII owned a different palace in the town, today called Palazzo Traietto. Until the mid-twentieth century this one was called the Palazzo di Gregorio IX, after the other Anagni pope, Ugolino di Anagni, from whom it passed to his heirs. It now forms part of the mother house of the Cistercian Sisters of Charity.

Nobody agrees how this building was made, and the disagreement is the interesting part. Rossana Ferretti attributes it entirely to Boniface VIII. Giovanni Carbonara identifies fifteen separate interventions, nine of them datable between the 10th-11th and the 15th century. Teresa Rinaldi counts seven phases.

Carbonara's reading runs like this: in the first half of the 13th century two houses of the late 12th century were joined into a Romanesque palazzetto with a tower beside it; in the second half of the century it was reworked in Gothic taste and enlarged with substructures of imposing arches carried on very tall piers.

Rinaldi's is more specific and more interesting. Between the late 12th and the early 13th century an early-medieval fortified line with two towers was absorbed into the main block, which meant building a structure of transverse arches carrying wooden floors. The units of measurement used in it are French -- which led her to propose workmanship of French origin or influence, most plausibly through the Cistercian order. The timing fits: not far away at Fossanova, Cistercian monks from beyond the Alps were raising an abbey that Innocent III consecrated in 1208, which would in turn support the idea that the earliest structure here was Innocent's. To Gregory IX's pontificate she assigns the south wing, two floors built over the pre-existing fortifications, and the raising of the north wing; to the Caetani, the enlargement of the east wing.

After that the structure was essentially left alone. The changes from the 18th century on were changes of use, when the Cistercian Sisters of Charity took the building over and restored its floors and rooms.

Two rooms on the first floor are open: the Sala Gregorio IX and the Sala Madre Claudia De Angelis. Both have wooden ceilings and are divided at the centre by a great stone arch resting on half-columns with fine capitals in the Burgundian Cistercian manner. These are reckoned to be the ancient heart of the palace and may already have belonged to Innocent III's tower house.

The palace was never a free-standing house. It sits inside an urban programme by which the Caetani built themselves a family stronghold, defended by the ancient acropolis wall that is still visible, on the model of the Roman baronial families -- and within that scheme it had a prominent representative role, which is what the richness of its decoration is for.

The palace was assembled out of older buildings rather than founded. Sources record a building here with certainty from the early 1200s, and stratigraphic analysis of the masonry suggests still older structures underneath. The known method is absorption: an early-medieval fortified line with two towers was taken into the main body of the house, and a system of transverse arches carrying wooden floors was built to make that work.

Gregory IX's building went up on land owned by his father, Mattia, and had to be finished within the first quarter of the 13th century -- a period of intense building activity across the whole of Anagni. The complex was substantial enough to be described as maius.

The giveaway detail is metrological. The units of measure used in the earliest phase are French, which is why Teresa Rinaldi proposed French workmanship or French influence, most likely arriving through the Cistercians. Cistercian monks from north of the Alps were at that moment building the abbey of Fossanova nearby, consecrated by Innocent III in 1208. The Burgundian Cistercian capitals on the half-columns of the first-floor arch belong to the same world.

Later work was additive and political. The Caetani enlarged the east wing as part of a decades-long campaign of acquisition: from 1283 Benedetto -- the future Boniface VIII -- and his relatives bought up property until they owned the whole Castello quarter, and the aim was a fortified family compound behind the old acropolis wall, in the manner of the Roman baronial houses. Alongside this palace that programme produced the building now called Palazzo Traietto, with its great arcaded front, the Caetani Chapel added to the south side of the cathedral in 1292, the canons' residence and the enlargement of the bishop's palace.

The last structural intervention of consequence was conservative: the Cistercian Sisters of Charity, who acquired the building in 1764, restored its floors and interiors and adapted the rooms to new uses.

Is this really Boniface VIII's palace?

No. It is the palace of Pope Gregory IX. Boniface VIII owned a different building in Anagni, today known as Palazzo Traietto. Until the mid-20th century this one was called the Palazzo di Gregorio IX, and the Italian source describes the Boniface attribution as improper.

Then why is it called that?

Because of a museum. In 1950 the topographer and archaeologist Giuseppe Marchetti Longhi set up a permanent exhibition here on Boniface VIII and the Jubilee of 1300. Expanded from 1953 with archaeological finds and documents, it became the Museo bonifaciano e del Lazio meridionale, the first museum in Anagni open to the public, and the name transferred to the building.

Did the Slap of Anagni happen here?

The episode happened at Anagni on 7 September 1303, when over a thousand mercenaries under Giacomo Sciarra Colonna reached Boniface VIII, entering through gates opened by the pope's own betrayers. Sciarra demanded his abdication; Boniface refused -- "Here is the neck, here is the head" -- and it is on that occasion that Sciarra is said to have struck him. But Boniface's residence in the town was Palazzo Traietto, so this building cannot be claimed as the room where it happened.

When was the palace built?

Sources record a building here with certainty from the early 1200s, and the masonry suggests older structures beneath. Gregory IX's residence was raised on land belonging to his father Mattia and must have been complete within the first quarter of the 13th century.

Who else met here?

Two emperors' worth of diplomacy. On 1 September 1230 Gregory IX and Frederick II sat down to table together here, with a gathering of princes and notables, to mark their reconciliation after the Peace of San Germano and the lifting of the emperor's excommunication. In 1254 Innocent IV -- himself elected at Anagni in 1243 -- received the ambassadors of the Kingdom of Sicily in these rooms.

How did it become Caetani property?

By purchase in 1297, three years after Boniface was already pope. Pietro Caetani, the pope's nephew and son of his brother Roffredo, count of Caserta, bought it from Adinolfo and Nicola, the sons of Mattia de Papa -- who sold, or were made to sell, along with other properties.

Who owns it now?

The Cistercian Sisters of Charity. The palace stayed Caetani until 1690, passed by the bequest of Marquis Orazio to the Astalli, and in 1764 -- when the last Astalli died in debt -- was redeemed by the Sisters and annexed to their 18th-century Mother House.

Is it wheelchair accessible?

No. The operator states that architectural barriers, a flight of steps, make the building inaccessible to people with motor disability or reduced mobility.

How much does it cost?

€6.00 full with audio guide, or €9.00 including the Italian guided tour; €3.00 and €6.00 reduced. Children up to 12, residents of Anagni and people with a disability above 74% enter free. An Anagni Pass covers this palace and the Museo Archeologico Ernico together.

What can I actually see inside?

Two first-floor rooms, the Sala Gregorio IX and the Sala Madre Claudia De Angelis, both with wooden ceilings and a great stone arch on half-columns with Burgundian Cistercian capitals -- the ancient core of the building -- plus the Boniface collection, now a section within a wider museum about the palace itself.