The patron saint of Petacciato is Saint Roch, celebrated on 16 August. Until 1967 the saint was venerated in the church of Santa Maria, built in Apulian Romanesque style in the 13th century with restoration work by Frederick II, with a single nave and a sturdy tower bell-tower; that year a new church named after him was inaugurated in the modern part of the town.
The municipal coat of arms recalls, with a burning tower over the sea, the destruction suffered by the town in 1352 at the hands of the Hungarians led by Corrado Lupo. Along the coast still stands, reduced to a ruin split in two, the 16th-century watchtower commissioned by Charles V against Turkish raids. Petacciato, despite its thousand-year history, became an autonomous municipality only on 30 December 1923, breaking away from Guglionesi.
