The church is dedicated to Saint Peregrine of Auxerre, a Roman priest appointed by Pope Sixtus II who had suffered martyrdom in Gaul in the third century.

Under the name of San Pellegrino degli Svizzeri (English: Saint Peregrine of the Swiss), it became the national church in Rome of Switzerland.

The church now serves as the chapel of the Pontifical Gendarmerie and the firefighters of the Vatican City and is entrusted to the care of the chaplain of the corps —currently Msgr.

[13] In 1932 Jérôme Carcopino reported the discovery among Fasti Ostienses of the dedication by Emperor Trajan on 11 November 109 of a naumachia.

A document in the archives of Santa Maria in Via Lata dating from 1030 records that the church was located on land "outside the gate of Blessed Peter the Apostle, not far away from the Leonine Wall of the city".

In 1653, Johann Rudolf Pfyffer von Altishofen, commander of the Swiss Guard, obtained from Pope Innocent X the right to use the church of San Pellegrino with the adjoining cemetery.

[18] In 1671, Pope Clement X gave it to the Swiss Guard, who used it for their religious services until 1977 in combination with the church of Santi Martino e Sebastiano degli Svizzeri.

[3] It is a simple façade with a pair of doubled Doric columns that supports a large entablature crowned by a triangular pediment.

The ceiling of the church is decorated with a wooden coffer, popular during the Renaissance and Baroque periods, and likely dates back to the 17th century.