After the lavish Etruscan and Roman eras, what is today the province of Viterbo thrived again in the Middle Ages. With its strategic position on the Via Cassia/Francigena, around the year one thousand, Viterbo gained importance because of the Lombards, who chose it for its fortifications.
It then became an episcopal seat in 1192, and continued to prosper during the 13th century, especially after Cardinal Capocci’s struggle against Emperor Frederick II of Swabia: thanks to him the people of Viterbo emerged victorious from the emperor’s siege on the city.
Santa Rosa also lived during the same historical period. She was born with a seriously malformed spine, which led her to devote her short life (she died at age 18), to helping the poor and the sick. The Saint’s anniversary is celebrated on September 3, with the famous procession called the “Macchina di Santa Rosa”, intangible UNESCO heritage.
At the height of its splendour, Viterbo became a papal seat (and so was called the city of the popes). The Palazzo Papale bears witness to this, built between 1255 and 1267, with the famous Loggia delle Benedizioni, loggia of the Blessings, in gothic style. Among the popes elected were Urban IV in 1261 and John XXI, buried in the cathedral. But great notoriety is connected to the long ‘vacation’ of the papal throne after the death of Clement IV in 1268, which ended with the election of Gregory X, about two years later, following the first Conclave in History.
The city’s excommunication launched by Martin IV in 1281 and the exile of the Apostolic See in Avignon for most of the 14th century decreed the end of the golden age of Viterbo, at least for the Middle Ages.
The city preserves precious testimonies of those times: the Palazzo dei Papi, the cathedral of San Lorenzo, and the feast of Santa Rosa; it is primarily the neighbourhood of San Pellegrino that brings the medieval atmosphere to life in Viterbo, with the extraordinary preservation of its civil architecture, made up of towers, alleys, houses with mullioned windows and openings, vaulted streets and arcades, maintained thanks to ongoing habitation of the neighbourhood.
In the direction of Rome, the Cistercian Abbey of San Martino al Cimino and the towns of Tuscania and Tarquinia represent true jewels of medieval architecture and urban planning.
In Tuscania the walls with the castle of Rivellino and Romanesque churches of San Pietro and Santa Maria Maggiore, miraculously spared destruction by the earthquake in 1971, are an emotional experience not to be missed. Equally exciting are the towers and the historic centre of Tarquinia.
Also worth a visit are Ronciglione and Caprarola, on Lake Vico, Montefiascone on Lake Bolsena and Acquapendente, second stage of the Via Francigena going towards Rome after the small village of Proceno, with the turreted castle, bordering Tuscany.
A must-see is Civita di Bagnoregio, one of the most beautiful medieval villages in Italy.
The village, also known as the dying city, almost abandoned due to the precariousness of the tufaceous rocks on which it was built, constantly has visitors from all over the world for its romantic beauty and hilltop position between two valleys where two rivers (Rio Chiaro and Rio Torbido) flow.