The church of S. Pietro is located downstream of the confluence of the Verde torrent with the Magra river, near the now disappeared Porta Fiorentina; called “de confletu” for the aforementioned location, it was a priory of the Benedictines, dependent on the Abbey of Brugnato. Just some documents of the Episcopal Curia of Brugnato, datable between 1294 and 1331, testify to its antiquity.

We recall the huge damage caused by the heavy rains of 1567 including the collapse of the castle wall into the Magra river, to which the church of S. Pietro was joined: not only did it ruin part of the church, but precious sacred furnishings were lost as well as the Tabernacle . Between the end of 1726 and the beginning of 1727 the choir of the church was renewed, enlarged and lengthened with a vault above the canal of the mills.

The last act of the relations between Brugnato and St. Peter is a papal Rescript of 1845 with which Msgr. Agnini, Bishop of Brugnato, renounces all his ownership and patronage rights in Pontremoli and cedes them to the Tuscan Government. In 1922 the Parish of St. Peter was entrusted, with the approval of the Holy See, to the Congregation of the Oblates of St. Joseph.

On 16 September 1944, a terrible air raid destroyed the parish church of S. Pietro, part of the rectory and the facade of the church, leaving intact the dome, the bell tower, the whole rear part and the two polychrome windows depicting S. Peter and S. Paolo, positioned in the two apse windows. Several nearby houses were also destroyed with the church. The day after the serious event, the Bishop Mons. Sismondo sent the Prior a sum of money to encourage him to start the construction work immediately. It was precisely the bishop himself and the Episcopal Curia who guided Don Ermanno Capettini, then Prior, in setting up the procedure relating to the reconstruction.

On November 22, 1955 the Bishop Msgr. Fenocchio laid the first stone of the new church. “The new church” – as Msgr. Fenocchio in his inauguration speech – “simple and harmonious, collected and welcoming, suitable for its purposes, it is compact”. The Parish resumed its liturgical and devotional activity in the new Temple, decorous and functional in its new architectural line: rigid coherence of straight lines and rational simplicity of its structures in the whiteness of the facade, in the red brick of the side walls.

Before the demolition of the remains of the old church, the two windows were removed from their position and placed on the first floor of the rectory; today the stained glass windows have been restored and relocated inside the church. The external baptistery with an octagonal base leaning against the complex is extremely particular.

The church houses a 12th-century sandstone slab depicting a circular labyrinth, very similar to the one carved on a pillar of the facade of the Cathedral of San Martino in Lucca. The labyrinth is surmounted by two characters with horses who probably represent a traveler and the dangers that await him, an allegory of the medieval pilgrim figure.

photos: arch. Elia Santini