Viterbo

Viterbo is the city of the popes: in the later thirteenth century the papal court lived in its palace for twenty-four years and several pontiffs were elected here, including Gregory X after the townspeople locked up the cardinals in 1268–1271. Its hot springs, the Bullicame, drew the sick. The popes never came to live in the city again, and the exile at Avignon brought decline and new feuds, until the Gatti family and the prefects of Vico imposed lordship over the town despite Cardinal Albornoz's fortress, built in 1354.

Urban V stayed for months in 1367–1370 while trying to take the papacy back to Rome. In 1454 Nicholas V had Bernardo Rossellino build a bathing palace at the Bullicame to cure his illnesses, and Julius II and Leo X were frequent guests in the early sixteenth century, thanks to the Augustinian cardinal Giles of Viterbo; the Albornoz fortress was reworked by Bramante in 1506 for Julius. Sebastiano del Piombo painted the Pietà for the city in 1516–1517, and the cathedral facade was redone in 1570 under Bishop Gambara. A Jewish community lived in Viterbo from the thirteenth century until its expulsion in 1569. In 1798 French troops under Championnet occupied it; the town rose when the Austrian and Neapolitan armies entered Rome, jailed its garrison, and surrendered to General Kellermann after he defeated 6,000 men of Roger de Damas nearby.