The church of San Pietro Apostolo is the main place of worship in Fondi, in the archdiocese of Gaeta, and was the cathedral of the diocese of Fondi. Tradition has it founded on a temple of Jupiter and originally dedicated to the Virgin. Destroyed at an unspecified time, it was rebuilt under its present name at the commission of Leone, count of Fondi, on 12 December 1138. An inscription to the left of the entrance records the consecration by Bishop Maurizio Rogano, in office from 1636 to 1640; the one on the right records the passage of Pope Pius IX.
What to see
At the centre of the façade is the Gothic portal, with column-bearing animals at its sides: a lion on the right, a ram surmounted by another lion on the left. On the architrave a bas-relief shows Jesus between St Paul, St Honoratus and a cherub with a candlestick on one side, St Peter, St John the Evangelist and a cherub with a thurible on the other. In the lunette the mosaic of the giving of the keys is by the Fondi painter Domenico Purificato, of 1970. Above the arches sits an enthroned St Peter giving his blessing, attributed to Arnolfo di Cambio, who is said to have carved it in 1302. The bell tower, set back, dates from the mid-thirteenth century.
The interior has a nave and two aisles. The Cosmatesque pulpit, with mosaics and geometric figures, rests on four columns carried by two lions and two rams, and bears the signature of the master Giovanni di Nicola. In the chapel of the Cross are the funerary monument of Count Cristoforo Caetani, erected in the fifteenth century by his son Onorato II, and two gold-ground triptychs: one by Antoniazzo Romano, with the Madonna, the Child and Count Onorato between Saints Peter and Paul, the other by Cristoforo Scacco, with the Annunciation between Saints Honoratus and Benedict, of 1499. Under the apse arch is a twelfth-century crucifix painted on panel; the baptistery keeps fragments of Cosmatesque floor and a thirteenth-century font.
Visiting
The church holds the body of St Maurus in a silver casket, those of Saints Paternus and Libertinus in gilded wooden urns, and the head of St Honoratus in a silver reliquary bust. Opening and Mass times should be checked with the parish.
Our editors' tip
In the chapel of the Cross look for a marble throne with Cosmatesque inlays: it is that of the antipope Clement VII, who was elected in Fondi itself in 1378, at the start of the Western Schism.
