The town is two towns: Penna, which means peak, and Billi, which means treetop. Penna grew as a borgo, Billi was a fortress, and it appears as early as 962, when Otto I gave it in fief to the counts of Carpegna. They came together in 1350, laying a «stone of peace» in the market square that had grown up between them: since then a single ring of walls holds both.
In the eighteenth century father Orazio Olivieri left this place for Lhasa: he brought the first movable-type press to Tibet and wrote the first Italian-Tibetan dictionary. In 1994 the Dalai Lama came to Pennabilli for the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of his death; on a hill above the town stand a bell, cast from the one of the mission, and three prayer wheels.
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📅 Every year, on 5 May; Artisti in Piazza since 1997 between May and June
Pennabilli celebrates Saint Pius V on 5 May. Since 1997, between late May and early June, the international performing arts festival Artisti in Piazza has been held.
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 Pennabilli, but an easy day trip away.
