VITERBO, a provincial capital and episcopal see of the dis trict of Lazio (Latium), Italy, 54 m. by rail N.N.W. of Rome, 1,073 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1931) 59,473 (town), 37,059 (commune). A line (25 m.) runs north-east to Attigliano, on the railway from Rome to Florence. It is picturesquely surrounded by luxuriant gardens, and enclosed by walls and towers, which date partly from the Lombard period. The streets are paved with large lava blocks, of which the town is also built. The Piazza S.
Pellegrino is said to be the best example in the country of a 13th century piazza. The citadel (Rocca) itself, erected by Cardinal Albornoz in is now a barrack.
The cathedral, a fine basilica, of the 12th ( ?) century, with columns and fantastic capitals of the period, originally flat-roofed and later vaulted, with i6th-century restorations, contains the tomb of Pope John XXI., and has a Gothic campanile in black and white stone. Here Pope Adrian IV. (Nicholas Break spear) compelled the emperor Frederick I. to hold his stir rup as his vassal. The old episcopal palace with a double loggia built on to it (recently restored to its original form) is a Gothic building of the 13th century. The church of S. Rosa exhibits the embalmed body of that saint, a native of Viterbo, who died in her eighteenth year, after working various miracles and having distinguished herself by her invectives against Frederick II.
(1251), some ruins of whose palace, destroyed after his death, exist. S. Francesco, a Gothic church (1236), contains the fine
Gothic tombs of Popes Clement IV. and Adrian V., and has an external pulpit of the 15th century. S. Maria della Cella is noteworthy for one of the earliest campanili in Italy (9th cen tury). The town hall, with a mediaeval tower and a 5th-century portico, contains some Etruscan sarcophagi and a few paintings. Close by is the elegant Gothic façade of S. Maria della Salute, in white and red marble with sculptures. The Gothic cloisters of S. Maria in Gradi and of S. Maria della Verita just outside the town are strikingly beautiful. The latter church contains frescoes by Lorenzo da Viterbo (1469) and an interesting museum.
Viterbo is by some identified with Surrina nova, which is only mentioned in inscriptions, while some place this to the west of Vi terbo on the line of the Via Cassia, which was joined here by the Via Ciminia, passing east of the Lacus Ciminius, while a road branched off to Ferentum. (See, however, MONTEFIASCONE.) It is not an unlikely assumption that here, as elsewhere, the mediaeval town occupies an Etruscan site. It was fortified by the Lom bard king Desiderius. It is the centre of the territory of the "patrimony of Peter," which the countess Matilda of Tuscany gave to the papal see in the 12th century; in the 13th century it became a favourite papal residence. . (T. A.)