Urban V briefly returns the papacy to Rome

1367

Tired of Avignon's reputation and pressed by Petrarch, Catherine of Siena, and Italian envoys, Pope Urban V crossed the Alps and entered a half-ruined Rome where cattle grazed among the basilicas. He would last three years before fleeing back to Provence, terrified of Italian factional violence and homesick for Avignon's gardens and its far more comfortable palace.