Parish church of S. Pietro Apostolo

A short distance from Campovalano in the green countryside stands the beautiful Parish Church of S. Pietro Apostolo, one of the oldest and most fascinating places of worship in Abruzzo. Benedictines.

At the end of the twelfth century, the entire complex was transformed by the Premonstratensians: a bull of Pope Lucius III certifies the transition to the new monastic order in 1183.Collegiate and patronage of the Farnese, Angevins and Aragonese.

It is accessed through a narthex which preserves two engraved medieval crosses. The massive and slender Romanesque bell tower stands majestically next to the entrance. altar of S. Petronilla. Some decorative elements are noteworthy: a fragment of an archivolt with acanthus scrolls, a pulpit pluteus with the representation of Christ in almond between two angels, a coping with two heads and an animal in the middle.

Interesting are the votive frescoes along the walls (XII-XV century), depicting a Byzantine Madonna and Child, S. Onofrio, covered with a long beard; the remains of the early Christian sarcophagus of the marble merchant Aurelio Andronicus of Bithynia; a fragment with an inscription, belonging to a statue of Julius Caesar (44  B.C.); some capitals carved in bas-relief, from the Casauriense school, with allegories; a slab with an eight-petal rosette.

An important late sixteenth-century fresco depicting the Madonna and Child, in the act of crowning St. Joseph and, perhaps, St. Ignatius of Loyola or St. Francis Xavier, Jesuits. Noteworthy is a holy water stoup built into the wall, in the shape of a mortar with pouring machine.

In the right aisle there are two wooden statues of SS. Apostles Peter and James Major and a valuable polychrome clay sculpture, from the Nocellese school, representing the Madonna enthroned with Child and two angels at the sides, with movable hands, with dedication and date 1600.