L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2026 www.italoamericano.org 12 L'Italo-Americano R occhette and R o c c h e t t i n e were built with- in sight of one another above the same narrow valley in the Sabina Hills, north of Rome. Both grew around medieval fortresses guarding the route between Rieti and the Tiber Valley, and for centuries they shared much the same histo- ry. Rocchette is still inhabited today, but Rocchettine has been empty since the 1950s. Rocchette belongs to the municipality of Torri in Sabi- na, in the province of Rieti, in a landscape of olive groves and small settlements placed where the terrain once offered a military advantage; the vil- lage takes its name directly f r o m t h e f o r t r e s s a r o u n d which it developed. In the Middle Ages it was known as R o c c a B e r t a l d a , w h i l e t h e stronghold facing it across the valley was Rocca Guidonesca: together the two controlled a passage important enough to justify building two fortified settlements so close to one another. The fortifications date to the thirteenth century, when this part of Sabina lay along r o u t e s c o n t e s t e d b y l o c a l lords, church authorities and powerful Roman families. Over the centuries, both Roc- chette and Rocchettine passed t h r o u g h d i f f e r e n t h a n d s , including the Savelli and the Orsini, but their purpose was always tied to the same goal: the valley below narrowed the m o v e m e n t o f p e o p l e a n d goods, and whoever held the heights could watch and con- trol the road. Rocchette gradually adapt- ed as that military function became less important so, with time, houses were built against and within the old defensive structures, and the fortress became part of the f a b r i c o f t h e v i l l a g e . T h e entrance to the historic center still carries the date 1607, while inside are the church of the Santissimo Salvatore and the smaller chapel of San Sebastiano. Nothing here is monumental in scale, but this is part of the beauty itself of the place. Rocchettine, however, followed a different path. T h e f o r t r e s s i t s e l f w a s p r o b a b l y a l r e a d y l a r g e l y abandoned by the eighteenth century, but a small settle- ment continued around it and remained occupied into the twentieth. Then, in the years after World War II, the resi- dents gradually left, and by the early 1950s the village was empty. There is no single dramatic explanation for why one set- tlement survived while the other disappeared. Rocchet- tine was caught in the same r u r a l d e p o p u l a t i o n t h a t affected much of inland Italy after the war, when work, schools, transport and ser- vices increasingly drew peo- ple toward larger towns and cities. In a place that was already small and difficult to reach, a relatively limited number of departures could make everyday life harder for everyone who remained, until eventually there was nobody left. The old Rocca Guidonesca still stands above the aban- doned houses, with walls, towers and traces of the set- tlement gathered around it, but Rocchettine has never been entirely cut off from the village opposite. Its church, dedicated to San Lorenzo, was restored in the 1990s, and every August 10, on the feast of the saint, people from R o c c h e t t e r e t u r n t h e r e t o honor a connection never truly lost. Back in Rocchette, the surrounding hills are covered with olive groves, some cen- turies old, which produce the c e l e b r a t e d S a b i n a D O P olive oil. Much of the local cooking comes from the farm- ing traditions of the area, where vegetables, legumes, homemade pasta and pork have long been important ingredients. One specialty is the fallone, a folded bread d o u g h f i l l e d w i t h g a r d e n greens and baked until gold- en, traditionally prepared w i t h w h a t e v e r v e g e t a b l e s were available. Local farms also produce cheeses, cured meats and wine, including liver sausages, a reminder that this is still a very much agricultural area. E very November, a n e n o r m o u s pair of horns appears beneath t h e A r c o G a n - ganelli in Santarcangelo di Romagna, and anyone passing underneath is invit- ed to take a small risk. Local t r a d i t i o n s a y s t h a t i f t h e horns begin to move as you walk below them, your part- ner's fidelity may deserve closer inspection. The joke belongs to the Fiera di San Martino, held around November 11 a n d k n o w n t h r o u g h o u t R o m a g n a a s t h e F i r a d i Bècch, the Fiera dei Bec- chi. A becco is a billy goat, but in popular speech the h o r n s o f t h e a n i m a l a l s o made it an obvious symbol for the betrayed husband, t h e I t a l i a n c o r n u t o . H o w e x a c t l y S a n t a r c a n g e l o ' s respectable agricultural fair acquired this second identity is less certain than the tradi- tion would suggest. The fair developed in con- nection with the agricultural c a l e n d a r , a s S a n M a r t i n o marked the end of the farm- ing year, when sharecrop- ping contracts expired or w e r e r e n e w e d , l i v e s t o c k changed hands and people came into town to buy tools and supplies. Santarcangelo sat at a useful meeting point: goods and people arrived down the Marecchia Valley from the Apennines, from the Romagna plain and from the Adriatic coast, bringing cheese, timber, produce and animals into the same mar- ket. The nickname, however, is more recent than the fair, and Santarcangelo itself pre- serves several explanations for it: one connects the bec- c h i w i t h t h e g o a t s a n d horned livestock traded at the fair; another points to the unusual freedom of a day when crowds, wine and visi- tors filled the town, which naturally gave local humor plenty to work with. Either way, the horns won. They still hang beneath the arch today, while the old l i v e s t o c k m a r k e t h a s expanded into several days of food stalls, crafts, street entertainment, wine and the traditional national gather- ing of cantastorie, the trav- eling storytellers once famil- iar at Italian fairs. This year, the fair runs from November 7 to 11. The agricultural year no longer turns on San Martino as it once did, but Santarcangelo still gives the date its old privilege: a market, a feast, a n d t h e c h a n c e t o w a l k under the horns and hope they stay perfectly still. The large pair of horns hanging beneath the Arco Ganganelli in Santarcangelo di Romagna is one of the best-known symbols of the Fiera dei Becchi. (Original image created for L'Italo-Americano with the assistance of AI) The Fiera dei Becchi: a Romagna fair with a dangerous joke Rocchette and its abandoned twin in the Sabina Hills A view of the medieval village of Rocchette, one of two historic fortified settlements overlooking the Aia Valley in the Sabina region of Lazio. (Photo: Marco Anghinoni/Dreamstime) LIFE PEOPLE PLACES HERITAGE TRADITIONS

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