The thousand-year-old pieve of San Pietro di Feletto and the warning of the Sunday Christ

The Prosecco hills, between Conegliano and Valdobbiadene, are now a well-known destination, but almost everyone races across them from one winery to the next. Few stop atop one of the quietest ridges, where the Pieve di San Pietro stands, one of the oldest churches in this land. Reaching it means leaving the busiest wine roads and climbing among the vine rows, up to a grassy churchyard overlooking the vineyards.

The pieve

The building's earliest core dates to a period between the eighth and ninth centuries, while the pieve we see today took shape in the eleventh century, in Romanesque forms later altered over the centuries. The bell tower rises alone, with a spire added later. In front of the façade opens a broad portico, beneath which some precious late-medieval frescoes are preserved. It is here that the most surprising piece hides.

The Sunday Christ

Beneath the portico, in fact, is the Sunday Christ: a wounded figure surrounded by dozens of work tools, linked to his body by thin trickles of blood. This very rare iconography turns into an image the commandment on keeping the holy day: whoever worked on the Lord's day wounded Christ. A stern warning, but also an unwitting document, because those tools tell of the crafts and peasant life of these hills.

The frescoes

The interior preserves walls entirely frescoed by several hands, with works ranging from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century and hints of Byzantine taste. The paintings, recovered through a careful restoration between the late 1990s and the early 2000s, now show surprisingly vivid colours. There are no crowds, no noisy ticket offices: only the light coming in through the openings and the silence of the surrounding vineyards.

When to go

To visit at leisure it is best to choose spring or early autumn, when the hills change colour and the flow of wine tourists is less intense. Always check the opening hours with the local Pro Loco, because the pieve is not open at all times. Climb up on foot, if you can: it is the right way to reach this treasure and to give it back its slow time.

Getting there

San Pietro di Feletto stands on the Prosecco hills, a short distance from Conegliano. By car you leave the A27 motorway at Conegliano and climb towards the hills; the reference railway station is Conegliano itself, on the Venice-Udine line, from which scheduled buses run to the village. The nearest airports are Treviso and Venice.

Practical guides for Treviso

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• How to get to Treviso