VITERBO, DIOCESE OF. – Located in Lazio, in the province of V., it has been TOSCANA (v.), with which it covers an area of 720 sq. km., situated between the dioceses of Tarquinia, Montefiascone, Bagnoregio, Orte, and Sutri. Its 74,000 inhabitants are distributed across 39 parishes, served by 68 secular priests and 58 regular clergy, along with 12 male and 40 female religious congregations. It has a major seminary at La Quercia, shared with the other dioceses of upper Lazio, and a minor seminary near the episcopal palace, rebuilt in 1952 after war damage. It is immediately subject to the Holy See, with its court of appeal at the Vicariate of Rome (Ann. Pont. 1953, p. 449).
V. lies at the foot of the Cimini Mountains, on an undulating plain that gradually rises toward the Volsini Mountains. After Rome, it is the most notable city in Lazio. It began as an Etruscan center, later becoming a modest Roman colony. By the mid-8th century, it is recorded as Castrum Viterbii. It is not proven that its name derives from *Vetus urbs*, as some believe it was formerly called. In 773, the Lombard king Desiderius fortified it to use as a base for his planned conquest of Rome, which never materialized; the Franks then donated it to the Church.
V.’s importance began in the 12th century, when the long series of conflicts between the Popes and the Romans commenced. Eugenius III took refuge there in 1145, while Frederick Barbarossa established the seat of the antipope Clement III in V. in 1174. Otto I and Frederick II were defeated by the Viterbese, while the Popes of the 13th century established their seat in V. during their wars against Rome. In 1271, the people’s captain Raniero Gatti, advised by St. Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, locked the cardinals in the papal palace where they were convened in conclave, removed the roof, and rationed their food until Gregory X was elected, who then regulated the norms of the conclave. V. was also the site of the election of Urban IV (1261), and later of John XXI (1276), Nicholas III (1277), and Martin IV (1281), whom the Viterbese opposed as a foreigner, enduring excommunication and the absence of the Popes for 86 years. During this time, the power of the Di Vico family prevailed, but in 1345 Cardinal Egidio Albornoz definitively subjected V. to the Papal States.
It is difficult to determine when the evangelization of V. began. However, there are indications that it started no later than the 4th century, especially considering the great consular road, the Cassia, which passes through II. In its territory, a Christian seal and ring have been found, which G. B. De Rossi dated to the 3rd–4th centuries (cf. Bull. d'arch. crist., 2nd ser., 2 [1871], pp. 35–37), along with some Christian sarcophagi. A *Passio* (BHL, 8469–70) from the 9th or 10th century recounts that a priest named Valentine and a deacon Hilary were brought to the castle of V. under Maximian, beheaded outside the walls at a place called *Via Strata* (perhaps the Via Cassia), and buried in a place called *Camillarius* or *Cavillarius* (November 3). An appendix to the *Passio* adds that during the time of Gregory IV (828–44), Abbot Sicard of Farfa transferred the relics of the martyrs to his abbey church. In documents from 824, 817, and 788—before the translation to Farfa—a church or *cella S. Valentini in Silice* (the *Via Strata*) is mentioned. These are the oldest records of the cult of St. Valentine in V., and it is impossible to say whether he is the same as the one of Terni.
In 1172, the Viterbese destroyed Ferento, 9 km from V., the Etrusco-Roman city that, certainly in the time of St. Gregory the Great, was a bishopric. In the *Dialogues* (I, 9; III, 38), the Pope recalls the bishops of Ferento: Boniface and Redemptus. Part of the territory of the ancient diocese passed to that of V. in 1192, when Celestine III gave the *Castrum Viterbii* the name of a city and established it as a bishopric, uniting it with Tuscanis, Civitavecchia, and Bieda (v. Tuscanis). At that time, the bishop of Tuscanis was Cardinal John of the title of St. Clement, who took the title of bishop of V. and Tuscanis, thus demonstrating from the outset the de facto superiority of the Viterbese see, which continued even after the Sacred Roman Rota declared in 1617 that the two sees were united *aequo et principaliter*. Until the fall of the Papal States, V. was the seat of the legate of the Patrimony of St. Peter.
Among the bishops of V., there are several distinguished for their learning and governance; it suffices to recall the two Brancaccio cardinals, Francesco Maria and Stefano, uncle and nephew, of the 17th century. V. is the birthplace of the Augustinian theologian and philosopher Giles of Viterbo (v. EGIDIO DA VITERBO), of St. Rose (v.), whose venerated remains repose in the church dedicated to her, and of Bl. Venerini (v.). In the monastery of St. Bernardino, the body of St. MASSORETTI (v.) is preserved, who played a significant role in the history of Viterbese society in the 18th century.
The cathedral church of St. Lawrence, with its adjoining episcopal palace—also called the papal palace due to the residence of Roman pontiffs in the 13th century—dates to the institution of the diocese of V. Damaged by bombing in 1943–44, the 1952 restoration by the Superintendent of Monuments removed the Baroque superstructures from the interior, restoring its original Romanesque appearance. The churches of St. Sixtus (9th century, rebuilt in the 12th), St. Mary of Truth (12th century), and St. Francis (13th century), all damaged, have also been restored to their original state. In the civic museum, alongside archaeological collections, there is a collection of medieval and modern Christian art beginning in the 9th century. The episcopal archive, due to a fire, preserves no documents prior to the 15th century; however, the cathedral archive, whose documents begin in 1031, and the city archive, which is very rich with documents from the 12th century onward, have fared better. The sanctuary of St. Mary of the Oak, 3 km from V., must not be forgotten—one of the most beautiful creations of the Renaissance (c. 1470–1525). The attached Dominican convent has been the seat of the regional seminary of the dioceses of upper Lazio since 1933.
The bishop of V. and Tuscanis also holds the title of Abbot of St. Martin at Cimino, first mentioned in a bull of Benedict IX (1045).
ART. – Few traces of gates and foundations of towers, dating back to Etruscan-Roman constructions, are all that remain of the oldest city. Instead, numerous buildings, constructed in porous tuff and erected between the 10th and 14th centuries, still preserve today a fairly intact and fascinating aspect of the Renaissance Viterbo.
Baroque does not assume particularly interesting forms in Viterbo compared to Rome (Porta Romana, churches of the Gonfalone [1665] and of S. Agostino), while the 18th century has a work of extraordinary interest: the rebuilding of S. Maria in Gradi, by Niccolò Salvi (1738).
Less rich in sculpture, Viterbo nevertheless offers interesting artistic material in this field as well: in the Civic Museum, numerous bases of statues and columns, cippi, and funerary urns from the Etruscan-Roman period are preserved. In the church of S. Sisto, the baptismal font is a Roman altar transformed in Christian times, and also from the Roman period is the sarcophagus attached to the façade of the church of S. Angelo in Spata. Roman marble workers also produced in Viterbo during the Romanesque period rare forms in the capitals with sphinxes and dolphins of the Cathedral; of great plastic power in the study of the antique is the sphinx, now in the Civic Museum, formerly in S. Maria in Gradi, dated 1286.
However, as in Rome and in Latium and particularly in the Viterbo area, with the advance of the 14th century the classical tradition was lost and no particularly notable works by local artists are found; in the most praiseworthy ones, influences from masters who had come down are noted. In S. Francesco, the tomb called that of Gerardo Landriani remains faithful to the models of canopy tombs; on columns, the mausoleum of Clement IV (1274) by Pietro d'Odierisio, which has affinities with the art of Arnolfo, of which traces are still found in the figures of the attendants in the tomb of Cardinal Fr. Marco from the second half of the 14th century. The tomb of Adrian V is considered a probable work of the same Arnolfo. A Viterbese sculptor of the 16th century is Bernardino di Giovanni, to whom is attributed the main door on the façade of the church of S. Maria della Quercia (1506), which also contains a tabernacle by Andrea Bregno (1490) and delicate terracottas by Andrea della Robbia.
Viterbese painting maintains constant relations with Roman, Sienese, and Umbrian painting, which are variously reflected in it: fragments of frescoes in the crypt of S. Andrea at Piano Scarano are in a distant Cavallinesque manner, and also of Roman craftsmanship in design are the crystal miniatures in the form of discs found in the mausoleum of Pope Clement IV in S. Francesco. A small triptych in S. Maria Nuova shows the more strictly Byzantine orientation typical of the 13th century.
The medieval city, despite wartime destruction, still retains its character. The bell towers of S. Maria della Cella and of S. Sisto and the cloister of S. Maria Nuova date back to the 8th century. In the walls, built between the end of the 11th century and the second half of the 13th, the two-hundred style is preserved in the Porta del Carmine and in that of S. Pietro, once called Salicicchia, now fragmentary. The district of S. Pellegrino presents the typical character of medieval buildings.
In the churches of the Gesù (formerly of S. Silvestro), of S. Maria della Cella, and of S. Giovanni in Zoccoli, the architecture indicates the presence of Lombard craftsmen; the basilican style with colonnades is widespread; the roofing is preferably of the roof type, rarely vaulted; double-ringed arches are frequent. In S. Sisto, the very high presbytery shows ultramontane influences, as does the crypt of S. Andrea in Piano Scarano; the interior of S. Maria Nuova, with its ample colonnades, instead recalls Pisan constructions (Toesca). The Cathedral, modestly built perhaps as early as the 8th century, was recently restored to its presumed medieval forms; among the many reconstructions, the fundamental one of 1560, which led to the transformation of the main apse, now unfortunately isolated from the rest of the church. The Papal Palace and the most elegant loggia, though mutilated and stripped of its original polychromy, remain among the most perfect examples of Viterbese Gothic.
This was introduced into Latium by the Cistercians. Elements derived from their constructions are found in the cloisters of S. Maria in Gradi and of the former convent of the Paradiso and in the façade of S. Francesco. Flamboyant Gothic appears on one side of the cloister of S. Maria della Verità (from 1912 to the Second World War the seat of the Civic Museum). The 13th and 14th centuries also produced some towers and numerous fountains, among which those with a spindle shape (Fontana Grande) give the city a particular character. The Casa Poscia and the Casa di Valentino della Pagnotta are interesting examples of civil architecture.
The main façade of the Palazzo Farnese marks the transition from Gothic to Renaissance. The Town Hall, the austere Palazzo Chigi, and the churches of S. Maria delle Fortezze (designed by Battista di Giuliano da Cortona) and of S. Maria della Quercia are the most noble monuments.