St. Peter's Church in Portovenere

The Gothic Church of St. Peter in Portovenere is one of the visiting cards of the seaside town in the province of Liguria. A medieval church with a high bell tower towers above the rocky cliff of the peninsula facing the Ligurian Sea.

The present church was founded in 1198 on the basis of an earlier church. It is known that Portovenere already in the II century was known for the small chapel of St. Peter, around which local sailors began to build defensive structures. Previously, this place was the sanctuary of the goddess Venus, because of which the city got its name, meaning "port of Venus". In the XIII century, on the foundation of an ancient Roman chapel, which has a triangular shape at the base with an altar semicircle - an apse, the construction of a new church began. The Genoese, who owned Portovenere, erected a majestic structure with a high Gothic bell tower. The exterior walls of the new temple, built by 1277, are painted in black and white stripes, giving a clear view of the border between the medieval temple and the more ancient parts of the foundation.

The interior of the temple, distinguished by its conciseness, is considered one of the most outstanding examples of medieval Genoese Gothic.