Tomb of Pope Clement IV

Abstract

The tomb of Pope Clement IV (d. 1268) in San Francesco in Viterbo was created by Pietro di Oderisio. The tomb was originally in Santa Maria in Grado in Viterbo (though there was controversy about which church would be allowed to house the remains of the much admired pope). The tomb was moved to a different chapel in the same church in 1738 and then attacked and damaged by anti-ecclesiastical rioters in 1798. When Santa Maria dei Gradi was suppressed in 1885, the tomb was moved to San Francesco, which became at that point a civic museum. After a city official was caught rummaging in the sarcophagus, in the ensuing scandal the building and its contents were taken away from civic control and reconsecrated as a church. The church was damaged by bombing in World War II, and the restorer decided to turn the sarcophagus around, rather than reconstruct the damaged cosmatesque mosaics on the front and thus discovered that Pietro di Oderisio had re-used an ancient Roman sarcophagus. The Roman carving is now visible on the front of the tomb. The tomb follows a northern European Gothic type of tomb in having a Gothic baldacchin above and the effigy of the deceased lying on the sarcophagus. The tomb was originally at least partially painted in rich colors and included originally much more extensive inlaid cosmatesque mosaic to add to the splendour. Photograph(s) licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.