1261 papal election

Papal election
1261
Dates and location
26 May – 29 August 1261
Palazzo dei Papi di Viterbo
Election
Ballots80
Elected pope
Jacques Pantaléon
Name taken: Urban IV
← 1254
Detail of the loggia of the Papal Palace of Viterbo.

The 1261 papal election (26 May – 29 August) took place after the death of Pope Alexander IV on 25 May and chose Pope Urban IV as his successor. Since Pope Alexander had been resident in Viterbo since the first week of May 1261, the meeting of the cardinals to elect his successor took place in the Episcopal Palace at Viterbo, which was next to the Cathedral of S. Lorenzo.[1] The actual date of the beginning of the Electoral Meeting (there were, as yet, no Conclaves) is unknown. If the canon of Pope Boniface III (A.D. 607) were still in effect (and there is no reason to think that it was not), then the Election could not begin until the third day after the Pope's burial.[2]

  1. ^ Cristofori, pp.217-275, and, for the tomb of Alexander IV, pp. 277-285.
  2. ^ Liber Pontificalis ('Doings of the Popes'), in Monumenta Germaniae Historica Scriptorum Vol. 5 (Hannover: Impensiis Bibliopolae Aulici Hanniani, 1844), p. 164 (ed. T. Mommsen)