page_title: Orvieto Papacy
section_title: Later papal ties
hierarchical_section_title: Orvieto Papacy / Later papal ties
context_page_description: Orvieto, Umbria, Italy, was the refuge of five popes during the 13th century: Urban IV, Gregory X, Martin IV, Nicholas IV and Boniface VIII. During this time, the popes took up residence in the Papal Palace of Orvieto, which was adjacent to the Orvieto Cathedral and expanded onto the bishop's residence. None of these popes died in Orvieto, and thus no papal elections took place in there, nor are there any papal tombs.
  Political and strategic reasons motivated the frequent moves of the pope and Roman Curia during this period, and other destinations include Viterbo and Perugia. Urban IV and Martin IV resided in both Viterbo and Orvieto. During the period from the reign of Nicholas IV to Benedict XI, Orvieto hosted the pope more frequently than Rome.
  Art historian Gary M. Radke notes that "the papal palaces in Viterbo and Orvieto are the most extensive thirteenth-century papal palaces to survive to our own day." He dates the frescoes in the palace to the 1290s, during the reign of Nicholas IV or Boniface VIII. They display naturalistic impulses in the Gothic style.
context_section_description: Nicholas V (1447–55) in a 1449 letter gave money for the restoration of the Episcopal Palace and authorized Fra Angelico to begin painting in the Cappella Nuova of the Cathedral.
  During the Sack of Rome (1527), Clement VII (1523–1534) took refuge at Orvieto. Preparing for a possible siege of the city, he ordered the Pozzo di S. Patrizio ("Well of St. Patrick) constructed by architect-engineer Antonio da Sangallo the Younger. Of course, the pope and emperor had reconciled long before the well was completed. Sixtus V (1585–1590) drained the swamps around the city.
  Ownership of the palace passed from the pope to the cathedral in 1550, and the structure became a museum in 1896. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, "in the palace of the popes, built by Boniface VIII, is the civic museum, which contains Etruscan antiquities and works of art that are, for the greater part, from the cathedral."
caption: Pozzo di S. Patrizio
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