The patron saint of San Pier Niceto is Saint Peter the Apostle, celebrated on 29 June, in the church of San Pietro, the town's mother church, dating from 1581: inside it preserves an 18th-century wooden choir, later restored.
The town was originally called «San Pier Monforte», also attested in the form «San Pietro di Monforte», as it depended on the nearby municipality of Monforte San Giorgio, of which it was a hamlet. Having become an autonomous municipality in 1861, it only later took its present name of «San Pier Niceto», by royal decree of 5 January 1875.
