Inside the church stands a Roman marble cinerary urn, found not far away where a castrum once stood: it dates from the middle of the 1st century, and its inscription states that it held the ashes of a member of the household of the praetor Urano. San Pietro is in the hamlet of San Pietro di Rovereto, on via San Pietro, along the old line of the Via Romana, and is the parish seat of the vicariate of Rapallo-Santa Margherita Ligure, diocese of Chiavari.
What to see
On the front, two statues in niches represent saints Peter and Paul; above the main doorway a stucco relief shows the young Saint John. The bell tower is divided into three orders and closed by a dome clad in slate slabs; it carries eight bells tuned in D major. What you see today is Baroque, the result of work at the end of the seventeenth century — the foundation stone was laid on 5 August 1698 — and of the century that followed.
The choir once held a sixteenth-century triptych by Teramo Piaggio, with Saint Peter blessing between saints John the Baptist and Andrew: in the background the painter set the Gulf of Tigullio, the same sea you see from here. The building's history is older than its clothes: a document of 1197 names a priest Vassallo di Rovereto, and a bequest of 1213 gives the first written record, “ecclesie sancti petri de rovoreto”. The mention of 984, long attributed to this church, in fact refers to San Pietro in Genoa. Partly rebuilt in 1425, it was later fortified because of pirate raids in the sixteenth century.
Visiting
San Pietro di Rovereto is a hill hamlet of Zoagli, reached from the coast by car along narrow roads; the church is an active parish, so service times remain the safest moment to get inside. There are no separate opening hours for the Roman urn or the façade statues: you look at them when the church is open, and the forecourt can be reached in any case.
Our editors' tip
Hold two dates together: in 1351, after the plague of 1348, this community and that of Sant'Andrea di Rovereto shared a single rector while remaining in different captaincies, Rapallo and Chiavari; the parish rivalry ended only with the decree of 5 July 1763, which separated them and made San Pietro an archpriest's church. Look at the building with that story in mind and its stubborn independence makes sense.