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The Church of St Peter and St Paul in Cori: Rising From the Ashes of Two Destroyed Churches
The Church of SS. Pietro e Paolo (Saints Peter and Paul) in Cori, in the Lepini Mountains (province of Latina), is a modern building, built in 1952, but carries the weight of history. It stands on the ruins of the Church of the SS. Trinità (Most Holy Trinity), perhaps of Carolingian origin, razed to the ground by Allied bombing. Its name, however, comes from another lost church: San Pietro (St Peter), which stood beside the Temple of Hercules, and was struck by a bomb on 31 January 1944 during a service, killing many of the faithful.
Two Bell Towers, Two Losses
What is left of the old SS. Trinità is the Romanesque bell tower, rising tall in Largo Giuseppe Marafini next to the new church. As far as the ancient San Pietro is concerned — the church that for centuries had protected the Temple of Hercules and helped to preserve it — only a solitary bell tower remains, visible from the square in front of the temple. These two towers mark two losses.
A Roman Urn as Relic
The interior is bright and unadorned, with large stained-glass windows. One object in particular deserves our close attention: a Roman funerary urn from the mid-1st century AD, decorated with ram's heads, Gorgons, and festoons of fruit. Found near the Temple of Hercules and kept for centuries in the old San Pietro church, it has been suggested by some scholars that it may once have served as the altar of the pagan temple.
