Palazzo di Bonifacio VIII site features

The palace stands in the historic centre of Anagni, a town of austere, elegant buildings, Romanesque churches, bell towers, loggias and plain-architectured squares -- and of four popes, which is why it is called the city of the popes. The building is set within the line of the ancient acropolis wall, still visible, which the Caetani used as the defence of their family quarter.

Two rooms on the first floor are open to visitors. The Sala Gregorio IX and the Sala Madre Claudia De Angelis both keep their wooden ceilings, and each is divided across the middle by a large stone arch landing on half-columns whose capitals are fine work in the Burgundian Cistercian manner. These are the oldest part of the house and may belong to Innocent III's tower house rather than to Gregory's rebuilding. In the museum route they are used to explain three things: the ancient and medieval topography of the ground the papal residence was raised on, how the building changed under the popes, and the recent history of the complex as part of the Cistercian Mother House.

The museum inside is in two layers. The older is the collection Giuseppe Marchetti Longhi began as a permanent exhibition in 1950 on Boniface VIII and the Jubilee of 1300, expanded from 1953 with archaeological finds and historical documents and named the Museo bonifaciano e del Lazio meridionale -- the first museum in Anagni open to the public. Since the 2000s that collection has been a distinct section inside a wider museum of the palace itself, which presents the architecture and the religious life the building has carried.

It is still a working complex rather than a monument alone. The various parts of it house the "Suor Claudia De Angelis" nursery school, a guesthouse on the route of the Via Francigena, and the museum.

Two rooms on the first floor are open, and they are the oldest fabric in the building.

• Sala Gregorio IX -- a first-floor hall with a wooden ceiling, crossed by a great stone arch on half-columns.
• The Burgundian Cistercian capitals -- the carving on those half-columns, and the clearest trace of French influence in the building.
• Sala Madre Claudia De Angelis -- the second open room of the ancient core, named for the Cistercian foundress.
• The Museo bonifaciano e del Lazio meridionale -- begun in 1950 on Boniface VIII and the Jubilee of 1300, the first museum in Anagni open to the public.
• The acropolis wall -- the ancient circuit, still visible, that defended the Caetani family quarter.
• The arched substructures -- imposing arches on very tall piers, added when the building was enlarged in the 13th century.
• The room of the 1230 summit -- the setting where Gregory IX and Frederick II dined together after the Peace of San Germano.
• The Anagni Pass -- a single ticket covering this palace and the Museo Archeologico Ernico.