In the upper Astico valley, even before 1155, there existed a hospital of San Pietro in Astico, of which on June 4 of that year, Pope Adrian IV confirmed possession to Giovanni, the bishop of Padua.
Thirteen years later, possession of the hospital was reconfirmed to Bishop Giordano. In the following century, in the papal census of 1297, the church of San Pietro in Astico was also listed among the monasteries and hospitals of the diocese of Padua.
In the 14th century, the church of San Pietro was responsible for the souls of the surrounding area. During the pastoral visit of 1488, Bishop Barozzi found two churches there, an upper one, probably the original, and a lower one, added later. A strange architectural complex was also noted by Bishop Ormaneto in 1571.
In 1587, he found it recently rebuilt. For the first time, it was referred to as the chapel of the church of Santa Maria di Caltrano. At that time, the bell tower consisted of two pillars on the roof of the façade. It was rebuilt between 1763 and 1768.
In 1812, Bishop Dondi dell’Orologio found the church rebuilt. Seventy years later, as it no longer sufficed for the population, a new, larger one was planned, modeled after that of Velo d’Astico, with a single nave in Ionic style. The first stone was blessed in 1911.
The work, interrupted by the Great War, resumed in 1923; the temple was consecrated on November 27, 1935.
In the parish church of Pedescala di Valdastico, two tempera wall frescoes by the Padovan brothers Armando and Galliano Migliolaro are preserved.
They were completed between May 5 and July 16, 1959. One, located in a chapel on the left nave, depicts, in warm colors shaded in reds, the Baptism of Jesus, while the other, in delicate pastel tones, depicts Saint Anthony of Padua in glory among angels.
The oil on canvas painted in 1928 and exhibited in the presbytery of the parish church of San Pietro Valdastico bears the signature of the Treviso painter Gino Borsato.
The painting depicts the Delivery of the Keys to Saint Peter. In the first chapel on the right wall, there is a high-relief sculpture in soft Vicenza stone depicting the Baptism of Jesus Christ, a 20th-century work by the Vicentine Giuseppe Giordani.
Contents curated by Parrocchia S. Pietro Valdastico.
