THE CHURCHES

The edifice has got a basilical plan without a transept, with three naves marked by piers and a semicircular apse. Behind the second pier on the left, an altar was built to enframe a fresco also covering the pier itself. 
A single portal with raised archivolt and a mullioned window mark the plain, gabled front.
As the rest of the church, the façade is built in a local stone of greyish hues, laid in squared ashlars placed in regular courses. The top of the tympanum, the mullioned window and the façade portal are built in white limestone, yet scholars do not agree upon the chronology of these details, which might not be exactly coeval to the original construction. The apse and the back section show a similar masonry, though here it is marked by pilasters. The sides have been involved in more complex works throughout the history of the building.
The campanile is separated from the church and is adjacent to the apsidal area. 

A church dedicated to S.Pietro was confirmed in the area since 760, subordinate to the pieve of Camaiore in 984; yet, it is in the following centuries that the abbey started covering an increasingly important role, which would lead it to obtain Pope Alexander III’s protection in 1180. He set the church free from the episcopal authority, making it directly subordinate to the Holy See. This is the height of the abbey development, when the present construction was built, including its annexes, now partly got lost. In the subsequent century, the abbey would be surrounded by crenelated walls; nevertheless, as early as in the 15th century, Benedictine monks left the abbey, later occasionally occupied by friars from other orders. In 1532, the church and the monastery, by then in a state of ruin, were assigned to the Spedale di S. Luca in Lucca.

On the first two piers on the left hand inside the church, a Saint Mary of Egypt and a frescoed Piety are the residues of a once broader decoration. The Piety, making the object of a special devotion, was enframed by a sumptuous Baroque altar.

In the years 1856-1859, the church underwent significant restoration works under the direction of the architect Giuseppe Pardini. On that occasion, wide portions of the wall face were replaced and the large windows opened in the aisles in the 17th-century were replaced by single-light windows. At the end of the 19th century, the decision to create a cemetery along the southern side of the building implied the demolition of structures set against it, as well as the opening of a door on the southern side. After a few years, in 1902, the campanile was totally rebuilt.

M.P. Gavioli Andres, L. Luisi Galleni, Pievi romaniche della Versilia: itinerari storico-artistici, Lucca 1999, pp. 59-69.
M.T. Filieri, S. Russo (a cura di), La piana lucchese e la Versilia, Milano 2000, pp. 154-155.
C. Taddei, Lucca tra XI e XII secolo: territorio, architetture, città, Parma 2005, 367- 379.