Explorer Viterbe

The Palazzo dei Priori on Piazza del Plebiscito is Viterbo's town hall, begun in 1460 and given its arcaded facade under Pope Sixtus IV. Visitors see the frescoed Sala Regia, the Cappella Palatina, the courtyard with its 17th-century fountain and Etruscan sarcophagi, and the Museo dei Portici with the Pietà and the Flagellation by Sebastiano del Piombo.

Viterbo Underground is a stretch of tunnels cut into the tuff beneath Piazza della Morte in the old town, about a hundred metres long on two levels, 3 and 10 metres below the street. The galleries may go back to Etruscan water channels, were enlarged in the Middle Ages as secret passages and served as air-raid shelters in the Second World War.

The Palace of the Popes in Viterbo was enlarged from the bishop's palace after 1257, when the papal court moved to the city, and was the popes' residence until 1281. A stair of 1267 leads to the Sala del Conclave, where the conclave of 1268–1271 sat, and to the open loggia with its seven-bay arcade; the visit includes the Museo del Colle del Duomo.

Viterbo Cathedral, dedicated to Saint Lawrence, is a 12th-century Romanesque church on the Colle del Duomo, joined to the Palace of the Popes. Its facade was rebuilt in the 16th century for Cardinal Gambara, while the bell tower keeps bands of white travertine and grey-blue basalt; inside are a Cosmatesque floor and the tomb of Pope John XXI.

The Rocca dei Papi is a papal fortress on the hilltop of Montefiascone, built from the early 13th century under Pope Innocent III and later enlarged, among others for Urban V, who stayed there in summer from 1367 to 1370, and by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger. It houses a museum on Sangallo's architecture, and the Torre del Pellegrino looks over Lake Bolsena.