Chiesa di San Pietro Apostolo

Known locally as the Duomo, the Church of Saint Peter the Apostle is Cetara's mother church and religious centre. A church of San Pietro was functioning by about 988; its medieval fabric has since been reshaped with a neoclassical facade, a maiolica dome and late-Baroque interior decoration.

Why it matters

The settlement of Cetara grew around the church. Records show that in 1030 the town's fishermen paid a fishing due, the ius piscariae, to the Archbishop of Amalfi. The church remains the parish centre and the setting for the town's devotion to Saint Peter.

What to notice

The 18th-century facade has paired pilasters with Ionic capitals. The five-order bell tower rises beside the transept, square in its lower stages and octagonal above. The dome is clad in small glazed tiles and rests on pendentives painted with the four Evangelists. A bronze portal installed in 2005 depicts Saints Peter and Andrew within a net filled with fish. On the counter-facade, a mid-15th-century marble slab commemorates fisherman Grandenetto D'Aulisio, remembered for rescuing a son of King Ferdinando I during the Congiura dei Baroni.

The single nave ends in a transept and is decorated with late-Baroque stucco. The apse holds a wooden Crucifixion panel from the second half of the 16th century. A 1993 stained-glass window shows the dome of St Peter's in Rome alongside a view of Cetara. The organ, built in 1864 in the Neapolitan-school style, was restored in 2002.

Context and history

The church's forms reflect successive remodelling as Cetara grew around it. The late-Baroque interior and neoclassical facade were added to its older structure; its bell tower preserves the earliest architectural layer.