The church of S. Pietro dates to at least 1152, when it is mentioned as belonging to Breme abbey. As part of a project to enhance the area around it, the restoration of the building’s south wall provided the occasion for completing the investigations undertaken in the 1980s on the north and apsidal sides of the structure, which had uncovered various phases of the cemetery outside the church.

In particular, a rectangular room with an apse on its eastern side was exposed, positioned in alignment with the building’s east bay. This can be interpreted as the basement of the bell tower, according to a widespread model that began with the abbey of Fruttuaria and is known in the territory of Cuneo from the churches of S. Biagio di Morozzo and S. Benigno di Quaranta, which belonged to that important complex.

The apsidal bell tower was built at the same time as the church, which originally presented a central nave with two lateral aisles and four north/south bays, of which the western two were demolished in the 18th century during the creation of the modern cemetery. The small apse was built on the substantial east wall of the bell tower and traces of its original beaten mortar floor were still preserved. A small, masonry-built altar at the centre of the apse, seemed to date to a second phase of use, as it was separated from the mortar floor by a thin layer of material. Part of the south wall was preserved to a height of 25 cm, showing the use of smoothed mortar for the inner faces of the wall and the reuse of ancient building materials (already known in the adjacent church), in this case a fragment of marble inscription, probably Roman. The floor of the excavated room was also made with reused Roman materials, sesquepedales, laid without mortar, with a marble slab at the centre that presents a hole whose purpose remains unknown.
This reuse of materials suggests the presence of a Roman site in the vicinity. In fact, the excavation revealed a total absence of stratigraphy and materials relating to this period so that it can be excluded that the medieval church overlies an earlier context.

A phase of early medieval occupation seems more likely, attested by the find of a cornice fragment with vegetal decoration dating to the beginning of the 8th century. However, the creation of the modern cemetery has so far made it impossible to check this hypothesis.

At the external south-western corner a rectangular base built of stone slabs and bricks was revealed, filled with cobbles and mortar. This was probably part of the medieval abbey’s structures and today is covered by the foundations of the north-south 18th century cemetery wall.