Dumpling Festival

The Dumpling Festival is a traditional triennial festival that commemorates the popular uprising that took place in the mid-XIXth century in the town against the oppressive tax on ground grain. The event is considered one of the most important cultural events in the Lower Po Valley. Its success is due to the evocative suggestion of its origins: a dramatic event for the community, which the community itself was able to turn into a playful and joyful moment.

The event aims to commemorate the uprising by a group of millers and intellectuals, who were joined by the people in a satirical procession praising the arrival of a new king, fairer and more benevolent, capable of bringing a different social order to these lands. What they then did was organize a popular and convivial festival, in which they distributed dumplings made with the flours produced by the milling. In the context in which this celebration was born, the coronation of the king thus indicated the hope of the arrival of a new golden age, which would relieve the people of the Lower Po Valley from their misery.