Church of San Pietro

The church of San Pietro is located in that urban area that was being formed when, starting from the 11th century, as the Regesto Farfense attests, the first nucleus of the Manliani castrum was built around the rural oratory of Sant’Eugenia. Its construction can be dated to a period after the twelfth century when it was built isolated from the town and later, due to the slow urban expansion that began in the fourteenth-fifteenth century, incorporated by new buildings that altered its original appearance. The current planimetric conformation of the church consists of three naves, divided by two rows of columns that conclude the plan through a narrow and high apse without a triumphal arch.

The columns, five on each side, are contemporary with the other structures, except for two, which are located in second position starting from the entrance, both of which are the result of the reuse of previous buildings, probably from the Imperial Roman era. The façade, with a composite hut, is adorned with slender semi-columns; it has a portal surmounted by a lunette (from a later period) above which a semicircular window opens. The masonry of the church is not homogeneous: in the upper part it is brick and in the lower part in tuff.

The whole building has undergone considerable visible alterations with particular emphasis on the facade. In fact, in the Visiting Acts of Cardinal Corsini of 1790, a very different structure is described: among many other things, there is talk of a small room on the left and a bell tower on the right. Finally, it should be noted that in the twentieth century some Baroque additions to the interior of the church were eliminated, such as the side altars and the floor was raised to make room for the shrine of the dead.