Pianella has 8,437 inhabitants on a hill in the Vestina area, half an hour from Pescara. The name, so the legend goes, comes from the pianella — the slipper — that the daughter of queen Giovanna is said to have lost here while touring the kingdom with her mother; in reality it comes from the Latin plana, the little plain. Outside the built-up area stands the church of Santa Maria Maggiore, which tradition says Pandolf, prince of Capua, had built in 953 on the remains of a Roman temple dedicated to Vesta: inside, a rose window with eight spokes, a frescoed Last Judgement and a pulpit carved by a master who signs himself Acuto.
In 1473 Ferdinand of Aragon recognised Pianella as a demanial town, that is, free of a feudal lord; twenty-three years later he granted it as a county to Iacopo Probi, secretary to the marquis of Mantua, whom the community never accepted — Probi kept the title until his death without ever really having the town. Much later, between 1940 and 1943, Pianella was one of the Abruzzo comuni designated by Fascism for the civil internment of foreign Jewish refugees: four arrived, Germans. Two took their own lives on 31 March 1944, as soon as they learned they were to be deported; the other two managed to escape arrest.
No events match these filters.
📅 Every year, from the last Friday of July to the following Monday
Pianella celebrates its patrons, Saint Cyriaca, Saint Pantaleon and Saint Sylvester, from the last Friday of July to the following Monday, with the statues carried in procession through the town's streets.
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Outside Pianella, but an easy day trip away.
