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San Pietro Caveoso is a Catholic worship place situated in the Sassi of Matera. The front is in baroque style and presents three portals. Over each portal there is a niche with statues. The side niches are surmounted by two rectangular windows and the central one by two single-lancet windows. There is a rose window and a bell tower with a pyramidal cusp on it.
The central nave ceiling is adorned with pictures of 'Jesus and Saint Peter' and 'Saint Paul's conversion'. The 18th century altar has a wooden polyptych dating back to 1540, painted by an anonymous artist from Matera. The church originally had eight chapels, but the right four were demolished to build the oratory. In the fourth left chapel there is a baptismal font from the 13th century. It is 17.2 m width and 43 m long and has a deep choir.
The church has been recently consolidated, with a project about soil consolidation and general anchorage of the macro-elements of the building, and between the building and the foundation rock.
References:The Church of St Donatus name refers to Donatus of Zadar, who began construction on this church in the 9th century and ended it on the northeastern part of the Roman forum. It is the largest Pre-Romanesque building in Croatia.
The beginning of the building of the church was placed to the second half of the 8th century, and it is supposed to have been completed in the 9th century. The Zadar bishop and diplomat Donat (8th and 9th centuries) is credited with the building of the church. He led the representations of the Dalmatian cities to Constantinople and Charles the Great, which is why this church bears slight resemblance to Charlemagne's court chapels, especially the one in Aachen, and also to the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna. It belongs to the Pre-Romanesque architectural period.
The circular church, formerly domed, is 27 m high and is characterised by simplicity and technical primitivism.