Of the church of San Pietro, in Vasto, only the façade with its portal is still standing, along via Adriatica, on the Muro delle Lame promenade. It was one of the oldest churches in the town: according to tradition it arose in the tenth century on the remains of a temple of Ceres, and in 1047 it was already a possession of the abbey of San Giovanni in Venere. A Benedictine convent was attached to it, abandoned in 1410. Struck by the Turkish raids of 1566, it was rebuilt several times and between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries took on Neoclassical forms; in 1739 it had become a collegiate church. Because of its constant clashes with its rival Santa Maria Maggiore, in 1808 a decree of Joseph Bonaparte suppressed the chapter and the parish; the parish was re-founded only in 1915.
What to see
The medieval portal is the only surviving element: in the lunette are a Virgin and Child and a relief of the Deposition. At the sides are remains of opus reticulatum, the Roman net-pattern masonry. Beside the portal is the largest of the four bells of the old bell tower.
The church had a nave and two aisles with apses, and chapels each run by a confraternity. Two paintings that hung there are now in the Pinacoteca of Palazzo d'Avalos: «Il cieco di Gerico» by Francesco Paolo Palizzi, of 1853, and the «Ecce Agnus Dei» by Filippo Palizzi.
Visiting
The façade is in the open, along the street, and can be seen freely. The parish was moved to the nearby church of Sant'Antonio di Padova, which also received the eighteenth-century wooden Crucifix, the statues of Saint Peter, Saint Paul and the Risen Christ, and the other bells.
Our editors' tip
The church did not fall with the landslide of 1956: it remained standing, but badly damaged, and was demolished from the end of 1959. A new church, for which funds had already been set aside, was never built.
