San Pietro and the ancient church (“pieve”)

From its high ground San Pietro di Feletto and its ancient parish church dominate the beautiful hilly area of the Val Trippera with its historic villages and rural views.

The origins of the Pieve are not certain. It was probably built on the site of an ancient pagan temple and took on its current appearance around a thousand years ago. The large front porch is an architectural element characteristic of an ancient parish church and also one of the rare surviving examples. It was a safe place for the inhabitants of San Pietro di Feletto and its surroundings to hold social and political meetings. The facade of the Pieve is decorated with 14th century frescoes; the most significant is that of the Christ of Sunday represented with the body wounded by the work done on the Sabbath. The painting is of particular interest because it shows the tools used by the local population and is testimony to the peasant farming traditions of these hills.

The interior of the ancient Pieve has basic architecture – three narrow naves divided by round arches, a few windows and walls that look like the pages of a book, made specifically to accommodate the frescoed images of the Bible, intended for their immediacy to strike the imagination and to be imprinted in the mind of the population. The Pieve di San Pietro di Feletto was also the only church in the region to have a baptismal font.

 

 

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