Viterbo historical timeline

The area was Etruscan long before it was Roman, and the necropolises cut into the gorges around the city are its oldest surviving structures. Roman Viterbo was a modest place; the city that survives is a medieval one.

Its great period ran from 1257, when Pope Alexander IV moved the papal court here to escape a hostile Rome. For the next twenty-four years Viterbo was the effective capital of the Church, and the Palazzo dei Papi was built to house it. Five popes were elected in the city.

The most consequential election is also the most notorious. After Clement IV died in 1268 the cardinals deadlocked for nearly three years. The citizens, losing patience, locked them inside the palace, reduced them to bread and water, and finally removed the roof so they sat exposed to the weather. A pope was elected in 1271. He subsequently issued the rules that created the modern conclave — the word means, literally, with a key — so the procedure the Church still uses was designed in direct response to what happened here.

The court returned to Rome in 1281 and Viterbo became provincial, which is the reason its medieval fabric was never rebuilt over. It was bombed in 1944 and parts of the lower city were lost, but San Pellegrino survived.