Palais des Papes, Avignon

In 1309, amid turmoil in Italy, Pope Clement V moved the papacy from Rome to Avignon, beginning an era later dubbed the 'Babylonian Captivity' of the Church. For nearly 70 years, seven French popes ruled from here, raising the Palais des Papes—the largest Gothic palace in Europe, a fortress of towering stone walls enclosing lavish frescoed chambers. The court became a byword for wealth and, critics charged, corruption. The papacy returned to Rome in 1377, but a rival line of antipopes clung to Avignon during the Great Western Schism until 1403. The nearby Pont d'Avignon, immortalised in song, once spanned the Rhône.