Pope Boniface VIII (Latin: Bonifacius PP. VIII, Italian: Bonifacio VIII; born Benedetto Caetani; c. 1230 – 11 October 1303) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 24 December 1294 until his death in 1303. The Caetani family was of baronial origin with connections to the papacy. He succeeded Pope Celestine V, who had abdicated from the papal throne. Boniface spent his early pontificate abroad in diplomatic roles.

Boniface VIII put forward some of the strongest claims of any pope to temporal as well as spiritual power. He involved himself often with foreign affairs, including in France, Sicily, Italy, and the First War of Scottish Independence. These views, and his chronic intervention in temporal affairs, led to many bitter quarrels with Albert I of Germany, Philip IV of France, and Dante Alighieri, who expected the pope to soon arrive at the eighth circle of Hell in his Divine Comedy, among the simoniacs.

Boniface systematized canon law by collecting it in a new volume, the Liber Sextus (1298), which continues to be important source material for canon lawyers. He established the first Catholic jubilee year to take place in Rome. Boniface had first entered into conflict with King Philip IV in 1296 when the latter sought to reinforce the nascent nation state by imposing taxes on the clergy and barring them from administration of the law. Boniface excommunicated Philip and all others who prevented French clergy from traveling to the Holy See, after which the king sent his troops to attack the pope's residence in Anagni on 7 September 1303 and capture him. Boniface was held for three days. He died a month afterwards.

King Philip IV pressured Pope Clement V of the Avignon Papacy into staging a posthumous trial of Boniface. He was accused of heresy, but no verdict against him was delivered.

Benedetto Caetani was born in Anagni, some 50 kilometres (31 mi) southeast of Rome. He was a younger son of Roffredo Caetani (Podestà of Todi in 1274–1275), a member of a baronial family of the Papal States, the Caetani or Gaetani dell'Aquila. Through his mother, Emilia Patrasso di Guarcino, a niece of Pope Alexander IV (Rinaldo dei Conti di Segni—who was himself a nephew of Pope Gregory IX), he was not far distant from the seat of ecclesiastical power and patronage. His father's younger brother, Atenolfo, was Podestà di Orvieto.

Benedetto took his first steps into religious life when he was sent to the monastery of the Friars Minor in Velletri, where he was put under the care of his maternal uncle Fra Leonardo Patrasso. He was granted a canonry at the cathedral in the family's stronghold of Anagni, with the permission of Pope Alexander IV. The earliest record of him is as a witness to an act of Bishop Pandulf of Anagni on 16 October 1250. In 1252, when his paternal uncle Pietro Caetani became Bishop of Todi, in Umbria, Benedetto followed him to Todi and began his legal studies there.

His uncle Pietro granted him a canonry in the Cathedral of Todi in 1260. He also came into possession of the small nearby castello of Sismano, a place with twenty-one fires (hearths, families). In later years Father Vitalis, the Prior of S. Egidio de S. Gemino in Narni testified that he knew him and conversed with him in Todi and that Benedetto was in a school run by Rouchetus, a Doctor of Laws, from that city.

Benedetto never forgot his roots in Todi, later describing the city as "the dwelling place of his early youth", the city which "nourished him while still of tender years", and as a place where he "held lasting memories." Later in life he repeatedly expressed his gratitude to Anagni, Todi, and his family.