The Pesa Vegia is an unmissable event of the holiday season, an event with more than 400 years of history behind it that every year on January 5 reintroduces itself to its visitors by renewing itself and at the same time keeping legend and magic unchanged.
Many are the legends and hypotheses that have arisen over the years around the birth of this century-old event.

From the research work recently carried out by Antonio Rusconi (and resulted in the publication of the book "Pesa Vegia tra leggenda e realtà"), a date around 1605 is documented as most likely, the year in which there was the issuance of a grida, by Governor Pedro Acevedo, Count of Fuentes, annulling an earlier reform of his in 1604 and restoring in use the old units of measurement (hence the name Pesa Vegia).

Bellanesi have celebrated this event every year for more than 4 centuries, even in times of war and deprivation, by staging the procession of the Three Kings, the Pesa race through the village streets, and the bonfire on the pier. Over the years many have been the changes and innovations in the way of celebrating the good news. And thus come to light in the second half of the twentieth century the Governor and the reading of the edict from the balcony of the Town Hall, the living nativity scene, King Herod's castle and more: that is, elements that inserted into the traditional Feast of the Three Kings give rise to that popular event where the sacred merges with the profane in an unbreakable bond named "Pesa Vegia."

The festival is so deeply rooted and its strength is equally surprising to the point that not even the recent pandemic was able to stop the Governor's arrival at the harbor, the reading of the Benevolent Ordinance from the balcony of City Hall, and the traditional tour of the Three Kings, followed from afar by the homebound Bellanese, but all present together with their hearts out to the cry of "Pesa Vegia!"

Cover image: @CarloBorlenghi