The Church of San Pietro in Vasto, although no longer existing today, having been demolished after a landslide in 1956, represents a fundamental chapter in the religious and cultural history of the city. Its story, full of events and changes, is closely intertwined with the events of Vasto and its noble families.
Its origins are remote and fascinating. It is assumed that the church was founded in the 10th century, on the remains of an ancient Roman temple, perhaps dedicated to the goddess Ceres. Initially, it was a possession of the Abbey of San Giovanni in Venere, an important monastic complex located a few kilometers from Vasto.
Attached to the church, there must have been a convent, probably Benedictine, of which there has been no news since the fifteenth century. Pope Alexander III was hosted in these rooms, when in 1177 he found shelter for a month in Vasto, during the journey that would take him to meet Federico Barbarossa in Venice.
At the end of the 13th century, the church underwent a major restoration, in particular of its portal, the only part still remaining today. Its construction is believed to be the work of the master Rogerio De Fragenis, the same one who built the portal of the Cathedral of San Giuseppe in Vasto in 1293.
The Majella stone portal is formed on each side by a column, with three small twisted columns inside, which create a notable effect of depth. In the lunette two interesting sculptures. The upper one represents in high relief the crowned Virgin on the throne, with the Child on her lap. The lower bas-relief instead represents the deposition of Christ, with the Madonna and Saint John the Evangelist. The element that makes this depiction unique is the fact that Jesus wears a royal crown, and not the crown of thorns.
In the following centuries, the church took on a role of great importance, constituting one of the two city chapters. The competition with the other chapter, that of Santa Maria favored by the d’Avalos, led to an increasingly bitter rivalry, so much so that it resulted in real riots on the occasion of Easter 1807.
Because of these, Giuseppe Bonaparte, who at that time was King of Naples, took away the privilege of the chapters from both churches, raising the Augustinian church to the rank of the only chapter church in Vasto, which would later be dedicated to San Giuseppe.
Despite the downgrading, upon the return of the Bourbons the church enjoyed the general development of the city, and was restored in neoclassical forms. Inside, organized into three naves each with an apse, in the left nave there were three chapels, reference of three important brotherhoods.
The Chapel of Purgatory, or Pio Monte dei Morti, where the statue of the Dead Christ was kept, carried in procession during Holy Week. The Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, enlarged in the nineteenth century, which contained the work The Blind Man of Jericho by the painter Francesco Paolo Palizzi from Vasto, now exhibited in the Pinacoteca of Palazzo d’Avalos. The Chapel of San Giovanni Battista, which housed the Ecce Agnus Dei altarpiece by Filippo Palizzi, also preserved today in Palazzo d’Avalos.
In 1956, the church was damaged by the landslide that destroyed an entire row of houses on the Lame wall. It was not possible to save the monument, and in 1959 it was demolished.
The parish was moved to the nearby church of Sant’Antonio, where the large eighteenth-century wooden crucifix and the wooden statues of the Risen Christ, Saint Paul and Saint Peter were placed, the latter particularly dear to popular devotion.
The only part of the church spared for posterity’s memory was the façade wall, which acts as a scenic backdrop to the medieval square of San Pietro, which today faces directly towards the sea. The bells were saved from the massive bell tower, the largest of which is visible behind the façade on Via Adriatica.
