Church of San Pietro

The church of San Pietro is the oldest of Fossato di Vico, originally erected as a monastery of the Camaldolese monks as reported by the manuscripts, as well as possession of the Benedictine monastery of Santa Maria Appennino (of which some stones remain on the Apennine border between Fossato and Fabriano) in a bull of Pope Adrian IV of 16 March 1156 or 1157. It could have arisen however in the previous century, if we refer to the parchment of 1080 in which Biligarda - in redemption of his soul and his deceased husband - yields to the Monastery of Santa Maria d'Appennino, a land qui dicitur fossato posita iusta sancto pietro. In this case the architecture that is preserved would be a remake and in fact some of its severe gothic forms, diffused by the Cistercians, in particular the plan and the barrel vault in stone with a slightly acute pitch, belong to the period between the XII and XIII century . It is certain, however, that the building of the church preceded the construction of ditch, also because as main church it is not in the center of the castle, as it was usually when a walled settlement was born, but on its walls and to the point of transformation one of his transept in a fortilitium that, on this south side of the city wall, the one most exposed to attacks, went to join four others. Excavated in the rock to the east and north, surmounted by the home of the ancient monks (which can also be accessed from inside the church for a steep room still carved into the rock), overlooking a small square still features medieval. As evidenced by the remaining stones with the cross on the walls in front and archival documents, the church was the great cemetery of the fossil territory from its origins until the seventies of the nineteenth century. Fall in total abandonment due to the displacement of the pievania to the church of San Sebastiano, which absorbed part of its many riches, was restored and reopened to the cult exactly one century later, leaving some traces of frescoes, an avellum and other elements in evidence and adding inside a seventeenth-century stone coat of arms of the cardinal Gherardi, the roc of Doric column supporting the altar from the excavations of 1868 in Aia della Croce (Borgo di Fossato) and the beautiful white stone stoup, formerly belonging to the thirteenth century church of San Cristoforo, found by the writer in a stable in Fossato and donated to the church of San Pietro. Finally, to mention the spectacular stone wash-tub of the papal age, which lies below the church of San Pietro and immediately beyond the boundary wall.