The ruins of Rivellino castle in Tuscania (province of Viterbo) are all that is left of the ancient communal palace. The original fortified construction, dating to the Ghibelline decade (1253–1263), had a palace, inner courtyard and parade ground and was built on the foundations of two large square towers.
Today the palace is in ruins, except for the south wall (with Ghibelline or swallowtail merlons) and a walkway around the upper perimeter, accessed through a round corbelled turret (the only one of its kind in Central Italy).
The palace housed the Consiglio and the Priore and, towards the end of the 13th century, served as the residence for the Podestà (chief magistrate); at this time, the Rettore del Patrimonio di San Pietro in Tuscia and his Curia would already spend the winter in the communal palace of Tuscania. In the mid-14th century, the complex underwent further extension work with the addition of an external fortified enclosure and a surrounding wall on the rocky spur: this produced a small fortress, perhaps commissioned by the Papal government after Giovanni di Vico’s reconquest of Tuscania in 1348.
The Podestà was transferred in 1493 because of the building’s deterioration and was completely abandoned several years later after being sacked by the returning forces of Charles VIII of France.
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