Patron saint festival In 71 days
Feast of Saint Stephen
📅 Every year, on 26 December and 3 August
Rocca Santo Stefano celebrates its patron Saint Stephen on 26 December and 3 August; his name became part of the town's own name.
The people of the Rocca, whom the counts Ceci were bleeding, took an architectural revenge: they built a large church right beside the castle, to set it against them. On the left they used the old walls as a base, on the right they raised a retaining wall and filled the space between with earth. Under the floor they left voids with trapdoors, and there they buried their dead, until the Napoleonic edict forbade it.
The official name comes from a kidnapping: in 1167 the abbot of Subiaco was taken prisoner by Filippo da Marano and had to pawn this castle to the counts Ceci, and from then on it was called Rocca Santo Stefano. Earlier still, when the people of Toccianello rebelled against the taxes on the mill and were beaten, the richest woman there, Rosa, fled up here and gave all she had to the villagers, who named a street after her.
🎉 Festivals and feasts in Rocca Santo Stefano 1
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Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
Near Rocca Santo Stefano
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Places to see within 25 km
Outside Rocca Santo Stefano, but an easy day trip away.
Città Alta and the Venetian Walls 📍 Bergamo · 18 km A 6,200-meter wall built by Venice in the 16th century, this UNESCO World Heritage site encloses Bergamo Alta. Accademia Carrara 📍 Bergamo · 17 km The count founded the gallery and the school together, so pupils could copy from life. Teatro Gaetano Donizetti 📍 Bergamo · 17 km The theatre born where wooden huts once stood, now Donizetti's home. basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore 📍 Bergamo · 18 km The church without a façade in Bergamo's upper town: Campione's lions and the intarsias designed by Lotto. chiesa dei Santi Bartolomeo e Stefano 📍 Bergamo · 17 km The lower Bergamo church with the Martinengo altarpiece, Lotto's largest. chiesa di Santo Spirito 📍 Bergamo · 17 km Bergamo church called «of the Tasso», with Lorenzo Lotto's 1521 altarpiece and the via Pignolo chapels.