Founded in the 9th century on the spot where St Peter was believed to have been crucified and rebuilt in the late 15th century, the church owes its name ‘Montorio’ to ‘Mons Aureus’, the name given in the Middle Ages to the Janiculum Hill where it is located.
During the siege of Rome by French troops in 1849, the church suffered heavy damage and was turned into a hospital, while in 1876 the adjacent convent was given to Spain, which made it the seat of the Royal Spanish Academy. San Pietro in Montorio has a simple and elegant Renaissance façade, with a central Gothic rose window and a double flight of steps leading to the entrance portal.
The first chapel on the right houses two works by Sebastiano del Piombo, executed around 1518: ‘The Flagellation’, painted in oil on a wall, possibly based on a design by Michelangelo, and ‘The Transfiguration’ in the bowl of the apse. On the high altar of the church was Raphael’s splendid ‘Transfiguration’, which in 1797 was taken to Paris at Napoleon’s behest and returned to Rome in 1816 but in the Vatican Museums. The convent attached to the church has two cloisters, in the first of which is Bramante’s famous Tempietto, one of the most representative works of Italian Renaissance architecture.
