San Pietro ad Oratorium is a medieval Roman church in the countryside near Capestrano (L’Aquila), near the Tirino River.  

An inscription carved on the portal’s architrave helps to retrace the most ancient events related to the building of the church and its reconstruction.  

The church’s foundation is connected to King Desiderius (“a rege desiderio fundata”). A full reconstruction of the building occurred at the end of the twelfth century, also documented in the second part of the inscription (“milleno centeno renovata”).  

San Pietro has three naves with three apses. Inside, it has a tripartite division characterized by rounded arches. The nave is illuminated by slot windows carved above the arches at the three apses. Of particular value are the capitals of the decorated pillars with motifs inspired by nature and ancient symbols.  

There are traces of a cycle of frescoes dating back to the first half of the twelfth century, depicting Christ among the angels and the twenty-four Elders of the Apocalypse.  

On the façade, to the left of the portal, there is an inscription on the wall, the enigmatic magic square: “sator arepo tenet opera rotas”. Contemporary with the epigraph of the architrave (XII century) it is also arranged on five lines so that wherever you read the sentence it remains unaltered.  

(Translation by Paula Qefaliaj with Pallavi Kurakula)