1377
An idealised picture of Gregory XI’s return to Rome, a fresco by Giorgio Vasari in the Vatican.Image: Unknown · Public domainculture · Europe
Pope Gregory XI brings the papacy back to Rome
For almost seventy years from 1309 the popes lived not in Rome but at Avignon in southern France, where they were widely seen as too close to the French crown. Rome decayed, the Papal States slid into disorder, and critics such as Catherine of Siena urged the popes to return. Gregory XI, a Frenchman, left Avignon in September 1376 against the wishes of the French king and most of his cardinals. On 17 January 1377 he made his solemn entry into Rome. He died the next year, and the disputed election that followed split the Church for four decades between rival popes, but the papacy has been based in Rome ever since.
Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: Gregory XI ↗
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