Palace of the Popes in Viterbo

The construction, commissioned by the Capitano del popolo ("Captain of the People") Raniero Gatti, provided a great audience hall communicating with a loggia raised on a barrel vault above the city street.

The massive façade, facing the central piazza San Lorenzo which is dominated by the Duomo, is approached by a wide staircase completed in 1267.

On the right is a wide roofless loggia with a seven-bay arcade, supported by slender doubled columns and decorated with crests and reliefs.

In c. 1454 Pope Nicholas V commissioned building a bath palace in Viterbo, and the construction at the Bagno del Papa was continued on through the reigns of several popes after Nicholas V. The Vatican accounts mention payments "for building done at the bath palace of Viterbo" during the reigns of Calixtus III, Paul II, and Sixtus IV.

As a result, Martin IV was to issue a decree which ordered the abandonment of Viterbo as a papal residence.