Sagne co' gliù Beccalà Festival

A mid-August festival in the Prenestini Mountains

Pisoniano is a small town in the Metropolitan City of Rome Capital, in the Lazio region, nestled at an altitude of about 500 meters among the Prenestini Mountains, with its stone houses, historic churches, and trails leading toward the Aniene valley. With just over seven hundred inhabitants, the village comes alive in mid-August, when the historic square fills with long tables, lights, and the aroma of sauce for the Sagne co' gliù Beccalà Festival.

The event is one of the longest-running festivals in the Tiburtino-Prenestino area: for decades, the community has gathered around the same dish, prepared with the same hands and the same recipe. It is not a tourist-trap event, but a genuine village feast that has attracted visitors from across the territory east of Rome.

The dish: sagne with cod

Sagne is a fresh, handmade pasta, rolled out with a rolling pin and cut into irregular strips: a peasant tradition widespread throughout inland Lazio, where eggs were a luxury and pasta was made simply with water and flour. In Pisoniano, they are served with a red cod sauce—salted cod which, in mountain villages far from the sea, was for centuries the only fish available and the traditional dish for feast days.

The result is a savory, dense sauce where the tomato balances the saltiness of the desalted fish. It is the village's signature dish, and the festival makes it the absolute star of the evening.

How the evening unfolds

The food stalls generally open at 8:00 PM in the main square. In addition to sagne with cod, the stands offer sausage sandwiches, French fries, and other local specialties. A detail that visitors always appreciate: wine is provided by the organizers, a custom the festival has maintained since its inception.

• Opening of the stalls in the historic square in the early evening
• Hand-rolled sagne with cod sauce, the festival's signature dish
• Sausage sandwiches, fried foods, and local products
• Wine provided to participants
• Folk music, singing, and dancing until late at night

The Hemp Museum

On the day of the festival, the Hemp Museum of Pisoniano also opens, housed across three floors of an ancient building in the historic center. The exhibition tells the story of the entire cultivation and processing cycle of Aniene hemp, an agricultural activity practiced in the village until the 1960s and now extinct. It is a brief but precious visit to understand how these mountain communities lived before depopulation.

Why it's worth the trip

The Sagne co' gliù Beccalà Festival is an example of a still-authentic event: small, run by the village, and featuring a dish not easily found elsewhere. Those arriving in the afternoon can combine the gastronomic evening with a stroll through the village, a visit to the museum, or a hike on the trails of the Prenestini Mountains, which offer wide views over the Roman countryside on clear days. For those coming from Rome, it is a trip of just over an hour, and the mid-August atmosphere of the square—with families, shared tables, and folk music—is that of the village festivals of yesteryear.