Tradition holds that the Church of St. Peter the Apostle in Castel San Pietro Romano was founded by Emperor Constantine to mark the place where the Apostle Peter began his preaching in Lazio.
According to St. Gregory the Great, there was already a monastery dedicated to St. Peter Apostle by the early 5th century, where the monks lived in great humility. St. Benedict of Nursia lived there before heading to Subiaco and incremented the monastic life, leaving a very active religious community on his departure. After embracing the Benedictine Rule, Gregory himself spent long periods of time in the monastery of Castel San Pietro Romano. At the end of the 8th century, the monastery was demolished by Saracen raids. However, not long after, the church already had a secular chapter with an archpriest, four priests and two deacons which indicates its active organization.
When the area of Monte Prenestino was brought into the bitter disputes between the Colonna family, whose ownership dated to the end of the 13th century, and the Pontificate, in the person of their arch enemy, Pope Boniface VIII, the church survived the destruction meted out to the rest of the powerful family's holdings. The territory passed to the Barberini family in 1630 when they bought it from Francesco Colonna. During this period, not only was the church neglected, but its entire revenue annexed by the Bishopric of Palestrina. Only when supplicated by the population did Pope Urban VIII order his nephew Cardinal Francesco Barberini to restore the church. He brought in Pietro da Cortona, the greatly talented architect and painter in the Pope's service, who designed a complex and expensive design that was never built. The only element that remains from this phase is the painting of the main altar.
The church progressively deteriorated, being completely restructured only in 1732 when Pope Clement XII (1730-1740) took an interest after being lobbied by a noble from the Prenestine area, Lorenzo Stefano Mocci, as the inscription on the counterfaçade records. Work was entrusted to the architect Nicola Michetti who radically remodelled the building, extending the presbytery and adding a façade with portico in the architectural style dominant in Rome in the early 18th century.
The ornate plasterwork decoration in the nave makes it light and open under its wide barrel vaulted ceiling above a string-course that holds a Latin inscription recording the mission entrusted by Christ to Peter the Apostle.
Two inscriptions, on the counterfaçade and vault by the presbytery, record Pope Clement XII with the year that restoration work started: 1732. The Pope also allowed Mocci to bring the remains of a Christian martyr from the cemetary of St. Calepodio to the church, placing it in an urn beneath the main altar and giving him the name of Clement. There are altar niches in the side walls and a small, square chapel on the left wall dedicated to the Saviour, as evidenced by the painting of Christ Enthroned in the 19th century wooden tabernacle.
The building was not remodelled again after the 18th century renovation work was finished and has survived practically intact to the present day. The only exceptions being the little alterations made for preservation or worship purposes, like the new portal by the artist Nicola Russo and the floor in 1959, the transformation of the main altar in 1976 when the body of St. Clement was moved from the left wall to the centre, the repainting of the interior and exterior between 1979 and 1980. The bell tower and external façade of the church were completely restored between 2000 and 2001.

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