See also Viterbo, Texas and Viterbo University
| Viterbo | |||
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| — Comune — | |||
| Comune di Viterbo | |||
| Panorama of Viterbo | |||
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Viterbo
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| Coordinates: | |||
| Country | Italy | ||
| Region | Lazio | ||
| Province | Viterbo (VT) | ||
| Frazioni | Bagnaia, Fastello, Grotte Santo Stefano, La Quercia, Montanciano, Montecalvello, Monterazzano, Sant'Angelo, San Martino al Cimino, Vallebona | ||
| Government | |||
| • Mayor | Giulio Marini | ||
| Area | |||
| • Total | 406.28 km2 (156.9 sq mi) | ||
| Elevation | 326 m (1,070 ft) | ||
| Population (December 2010) | |||
| • Total | 63,597 | ||
| • Density | 156.5/km2 (405.4/sq mi) | ||
| Demonym | Viterbesi | ||
| Time zone | CET (UTC+1) | ||
| • Summer (DST) | CEST (UTC+2) | ||
| Postal code | 01100 | ||
| Dialing code | 0761 | ||
| Patron saint | Saint Rose of Viterbo and St. Lawrence the Martyr | ||
| Saint day | September 4, August 10 | ||
| Website | Official website | ||
Viterbo is an ancient city and comune in the Lazio region of central Italy, the capital of the province of Viterbo. It is approximately 80 driving / 80 walking kilometers (50/50 mi) north of GRA (Rome) on the Via Cassia, and it is surrounded by the Monti Cimini and Monti Volsini. The historic center of the city is surrounded by medieval walls, still intact, built during the 11th and 12th centuries. Entrance to the walled center of the city is through ancient gates.
Apart from agriculture, the main resources of Viterbo's area are pottery, marble, and wood. The town also hosts the Italian gold reserves, an important Academy of Fine Arts, and the University of Tuscia, and is located in a wide thermal area, attracting many tourist from the whole central Italy.
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The first report of the new city dates to the eighth century, when it is identified as Castrum Viterbii. It was fortified in 773 by the Lombard king Desiderius in his vain attempt to conquer Rome. When the Popes switched to the Frankish support, Viterbo became part of the Papal States, but this status was to be highly contested by the Emperors in the following centuries, until in 1095 it is known it was a free comune.
In a period in which the Popes had difficulties asserting their authority over Rome, Viterbo became their favourite residence, beginning with Pope Eugene III (1145–1146) who was besieged in vain in the city walls. In 1164 Frederick Barbarossa made Viterbo the seat of his Antipope Paschal III. Three years later he gave it the title of "city" and used its militias against Rome. In 1172 Viterbo started its expansion, destroying the old city of Ferentum and conquering other lands: in this age it was a rich and prosperous comune, one of the most important of Central Italy, with a population of almost 60,000.
In 1207, Pope Innocent III held a council in the cathedral, but the city was later excommunicated as favourite seat of the heretical Patari and even defeated by the Romans. In 1210, however, Viterbo managed to defeat the Emperor Otto IV and was again in war against Rome.
In the thirteenth century it was ruled alternately by the tyrants of the Gatti and Di Vico families. Frederick II drew Viterbo to the Ghibelline side in 1240, but when the citizens expelled his turbulent German troops in 1243 he returned and besieged the city, but in vain. From that point Viterbo was always a loyal Guelph. Between 1257 and 1261 it was the seat of Pope Alexander IV, who also died here. His successor Urban IV was elected in Viterbo.
In 1266-1268 Clement IV chose Viterbo as the base of his ruthless fight against the Hohenstaufen: here, from the loggia of the Papal Palace, he excommunicated the army of Conradin of Swabia which was passing on the Via Cassia, with the prophetical motto of the "lamb who is going to the sacrifice". Other popes elected in Viterbo were Gregory X (1271) and John XXI (1276) (who died in the Papal Palace when the ceiling of the recently-built library collapsed on him while he slept), Nicholas III and the French Martin IV. The Viterbese, who did not agree with the election of a foreigner directed by the King of Naples, Charles I of Anjou, invaded the cathedral where the conclave was held, arresting two of the cardinals. They were subsequently excommunicated, and the Popes avoided Viterbo for 86 years.
Without the Popes, the city fell into the hands of the Di Vicos. In the fourteenth century, Giovanni di Vico had created a seignory extending to Civitavecchia, Tarquinia, Bolsena, Orvieto, Todi, Narni and Amelia. His dominion was crushed by Cardinal Gil de Albornoz in 1354, sent by the Avignonese popes to recover the Papal States, who built the Castle. In 1375 the city gave its keys to Francesco Di Vico, son of the previous tyrant, but thirteen years later the people killed him and assigned the city first to Pope Urban VI, and then to Giovanni di Sciarra di Vico, Francesco's cousin. But Pope Boniface IX's troops drove him away in 1396 and established a firm Papal suzerainty over the city. The last Di Vico to hold power in Viterbo was Giacomo, who was defeated in 1431.
Thenceforth Viterbo became a city of secondary importance, following the vicissitudes of the Papal States. In the 16th century it was the birthplace of Latino Latini. It becoming part of Italy in 1871. In 2001, School Year Abroad's Italy program began a school for students of Latin in Viterbo.[1]
Viterbo has two heraldic badges in its coat of arms (stemma): The Lion and the Palm Tree. The lion represents Hercules, one of the mythological founders of Viterbo. The palm tree was added sometime in the Dark Ages (4th-9th century CE) when Viterbo conquered and absorbed a neighboring town: Ferento. The letters FAUL, often surround the badges. It is unclear what they refer to. Some suggest the four legendary Etruscan nobles families, believed to be involved in the founding of the city, while others claim that they are in reference to the four hills of Viterbo.
Viterbo experiences a Mediterranean climate (Köppen climate classification Csa).
| Climate data for Viterbo | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
| Average high °C (°F) | 9.5 (49.1) |
11.0 (51.8) |
13.6 (56.5) |
16.5 (61.7) |
21.1 (70.0) |
25.4 (77.7) |
29.1 (84.4) |
29.0 (84.2) |
25.3 (77.5) |
19.9 (67.8) |
14.2 (57.6) |
10.4 (50.7) |
18.8 (65.8) |
| Average low °C (°F) | 0.7 (33.3) |
1.8 (35.2) |
2.9 (37.2) |
5.1 (41.2) |
8.5 (47.3) |
12.0 (53.6) |
14.6 (58.3) |
15.1 (59.2) |
12.8 (55.0) |
9.1 (48.4) |
4.7 (40.5) |
2.1 (35.8) |
7.4 (45.4) |
| Precipitation mm (inches) | 56 (2.2) |
61 (2.4) |
48 (1.9) |
61 (2.4) |
56 (2.2) |
56 (2.2) |
28 (1.1) |
53 (2.1) |
58 (2.3) |
86 (3.4) |
94 (3.7) |
69 (2.7) |
726 (28.6) |
| Source: [2] | |||||||||||||
Viterbo's historic center is one of the best preserved medieval towns of central Italy. Many of the older buildings (particularly churches) are built on top of ancient ruins, recognizable by their large stones, 50 centimeters to a side.
The main attraction of Viterbo is the Papal Palace (Palazzo dei Papi), that served as a country residence and a repair in time of trouble in Rome. The columns of the palace are spolia from a Roman temple.
The second most important monument of the city is the Cathedral of S. Lorenzo. It was erected in Romanesque style by Lombard architects over a temple of Hercules. It was variously rebuilt from the sixteenth century on, and was heavily damaged in 1944 by Allied bombs. The notable Gothic belfry is from the first half of the fourteenth century, and shows influence of Senese artists. The church houses the sarcophagus of Pope John XXI and the picture Christ Blessing by Gerolamo da Cremona (1472).
Other notable monuments are:
The Museo Civico (City Museum) houses many archeological specimens from the pre-historical to Roman times, plus a Pinacoteca (gallery) with paintings of Sebastiano del Piombo, Antoniazzo Romano, Salvator Rosa, Antiveduto Grammatica and others. The Orto Botanico dell'Università della Tuscia is a botanical garden operated by the university.
In the valley of the Arcione River just to west of Viterbo are a number of springs celebrated for the healing qualities of their waters, and in use since Etruscan and Roman days. In fact, the imposing ruins of a great Roman bath still are to be seen and weredrawn in plan and perspective by Renaissance masters, including Giuliano da Sangallo, Michelangelo, and Giorgio Vasari.[3] One of most famous of these thermal springs was that known as the "Bulicame", or bubbling place, whose reputation had even reached the ears of the exiled poet Dante Aligheri. Canto 14 (lines 79-81) of Dante's Inferno describes how:
In silence we had reached a place where flowed
a slender watercourse out of the wood—a stream
whose redness makes me shudder still.
As from the Bulicame pours a brook whose
waters are then shared by prostitutes, so did this
stream run down across the sand.[4]
Not far from the Bulicame whose waters, apparently, were always taken in the open, is the Bagno del Papa (Bath of the Pope). Almost totally concealed within the structure of a modern luxury spa hotel are the remains of a Renaissance bath palace that attracted the active attention of two popes.[5] Actually, the origins of this bathing establishment go back into the Middle Ages when it was known as the Bagno della Crociata (so named after a Crusader who supposedly discovered the spring or from a corruption of the Italian word for crutch). Early 15th-century documents provide a description of the medieval bath building that covered three distinct thermal springs all under one roof.[6]
This bath house was radically transformed by the first humanist pope of the Italian Renaissance, Nicholas V, who, c. 1454, ordered the construction of a bath palace to be built (according to Nicholas's biographer, Gianozzo Manetti) "with such magnificence and with such expense that it was not only deemed suitable for a stay and salutary for the sick but seemed an edifice destined to have rooms fit for princes and for living regally."[6] A more precise description of just what Pope Nicholas ordered constructed is found in the wriings of the Viterbese chronicler Nicola della Tuccia, who in the 1470s described the new Bagno del Papa as a battlemented building about 30 x 20 m in size with high towers at the corners of its southern facade. Its appearance would have been more fortress than watering place. Located outside Viterbo the thermal spa would have been an easy target for roving bands of bandits had the building not assumed a militant character, one which also affirmed papal authority in this region. Aside from the regal apartments described by Manedtti there were vaulted chambers at the lowest level to accommodate the patrons of the several thermal springs.[6]
Manetti, followed by Vasari, named the Florentine architect and sculptor Bernardo Rossellino as the person responsible for a series of building projects carried out throughout the papal states at the orders of Pope Nicholas and his name is usually associated with the project in Viterbo.[7] There is, however, no reason, either through documentation or architectural style, to connect Rossellino directly with the construction of the Bagno del Papa. To the contrary, Vatican payment records from 1454, preserved in the State Archives in Rome, identify stonemason from Lombardy, named Stefano di Beltrame, as the builder who "had done or was doing in the house ordered by the pope at the bagni della Grotta and Crociata of Viterbo.".[8]
Construction work at the Bagno del Papa was continued on through the reigns of several popes who followed Nicholas V. The Vatican account books make mention of payments "for building done at the bath palace of Viterbo" during the reigns of Calixtus III, Paul II, and Sixtus IV. There also is strong evidence that Pope Pius II was responsible for the addition of a western wing to the building.[9]
Travelers' descriptions, etched views, and local guidebooks chronicle the fate of the Renaissance Bagno del Papa over the years and through several rebuildings resulting in a general assumption that most of the original 15th-century structure had vanished. A guide to Viterbo from 1911 does note that some remnants were still to be detected in basement piers and vaults. In operation as a thermal hospital in 1927, the building was blown up by retreating German forces in 1944.[10]
Despite all the rebuildings, the demolition attempt, post-war reconstruction and the latest modification as a resort destination, much of the original Bagno del Papa of Popes Nicholas V and Pius II survives, including the corner towers and the vaulted chambers where Renaissance patrons once bathed.[11]
The Villa Lante, an example of Mannerist gardening, is located in the frazione of Bagnaia.
St. Rose is the patron saint of Viterbo. The legend of Santa Rosa is that she helped to eradicate those few who supported the emperors instead of the Popes, around 1250. Saint Lawrence is the male patron saint.
The transport of the Macchina di Santa Rosa takes place every year, on September 3, at 9 o'clock in the evening. The Macchina is an artistic illuminated bell-tower with an imposing height of 30 m. It weighs between 3.5 and 5 tonnes and is made of iron, wood and papier-mâché. At the top of the tower, the statue of the Patron Saint is enthusiastically acclaimed by the people in the streets of the town centre, where lights are turned off for the occasion. One hundred Viterbesi men (known as the Facchini) carry the Macchina from Porta Romana through the each of the major streets of Viterbo to seven churches to be blessed, concluding with a strenuous ascension up to the Piazza di Santa Rosa, its final resting place. Each Macchina's lifespan differs, but contests are held every few years in order for a new design.
During July and August the Tuscia Opera Festival is held in Viterbo. Directors Stefano Vignati and Claudio Ferri run the administrative side of the festival which consists of offering parts in the Ensemble program and Opera Roles to Americans. Auditions are held in the Winter and Spring in places such as New York City, New York and Washington, DC. There are American staff members including Cynthia Munzer, Lisa Kay Morton and other University teachers that collaborate with Italian teachers. American students participate in Ensembles of Operas, Master Classes and classes.
Rome Viterbo Airport was opened in 1936 as part of Viterbo Air Force Base, located 3 km from the town. On November 26, 2007, Italian transport minister Alessandro Bianchi announced that Viterbo had been chosen as the site of the next Airport in Lazio to serve Rome, over Latina, Frosinone, and Guidonia.[12]