Best Western
Hotel Viterbo

Complex of Saint Maria in Gradi

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Situated just outside Porta Romana, this convent complex was erected in 1215 by Cardinal Raniero Capocci who donated it to the founder of the Dominican order.
For many years it was used as a civil prison, recently restructured and destined to be part of The University of Viterbo.
The complex includes a magnificent marble cloister in Gothic style with 160 twin columns, opera of 13th Roman marble workers, another more recent cloister done in neoclassic style (1740) with an elegant renaissance fountain and the ruins of the Church of Saint Maria in Gradi (1244) in the middle. The church was redone in the 18th century by the Roman architect Nicola Salvi, by that time without a roof and artwork that was once inside, but only shreds of evidence of the original construction.