Viterbo Cathedral - Construction

Construction

The cathedral as built in the twelfth century is east-facing and sits high on the hill with the attached Papal palace overlooking the town spread below. Its façade oddly contrasts with surrounding buildings as it is not built from local stone, but was instead constructed with imported materials during Gambarra’s reconstruction. It is sparsely decorated, but at its centre is a rose window, although without any form of stained-glass decoration. There are two similar but smaller windows positioned further down over two smaller entrances aside the main entrance, again undecorated. Therefore, in total there are 33 windows. The only indication of the original decoration of the cathedral can be seen on the neighbouring campanile, which is clad in alternating bands of local white travertine and blue-green basalt stone in a manner similar to the entire Orvieto Cathedral.