Festa di Castagnatura 2025

If you happen to be in Tuscany during this time of the year, then don’t miss out on the Festa di Castagnatura, chestnut festival in Raggiolo! During this festival, Raggiolo is transformed into a living open-air museum. Locals bake chestnuts, roast them on open fires and serve traditional dishes such as polenta di castagne, chestnut beer and vin brulé.

There will be live music and artisans demonstrate their crafts as they were done centuries ago. The Chestnut Festival is not only a culinary event, but also a journey back in time. Visitors can stroll through narrow alleys and visit the Ecomuseum, the old watermill, and the old drying house (seccatoio), while children can watch the puppet show or enjoy a donkey ride.

So, be sure to add Raggiolo to your list!

📍When: 1 and 2 November 2025

📍Where: Raggiolo, Arezzo, Tuscany

📍See for more information https://www.tuttoraggiolo.it/festa-di-castagnatura-2025/

🌰 Don’t forget your warm coat – and your appetite!

Il Seccatoio

The annual Festa di Castagnatura, the chestnut festival, is more than just a seasonal fair, it is a living memory of community, survival, craftsmanship, and connectedness with the land. Raggiolo is located around 600 metres above sea level and is somewhat isolated in the hills. The forested slopes made chestnut cultivation a better resource than other crops, requiring less infrastructure than large fields. Over the centuries, chestnuts became so central to life in this region that one can speak of a ‘chestnut civilization’. The chestnut tree (Castanea sativa) is sometimes called the ‘bread tree’ (albero del pane) because its fruit was a staple in the diets of mountain people, especially during autumn and winter when other crops were less reliable.

The chestnuts are dried in the seccatoio. In simple terms, this is a specialized drying house for chestnuts. After harvest, fresh chestnuts have high moisture content and need to be dried to avoid spoilage. Drying also improves the flavours, allows for storage through the winter, and facilitates milling into flour. Without it, chestnuts would mold, ferment, or otherwise degrade.

Like many traditional agricultural practices, the use of seccatoi (plural of seccatoio) declined in the 20th century. Reasons include urbanization, emigration, changes in diet, introduction of modern food supply systems and competition from more industrialized agriculture. In Tuscany and Casentino, many orchards were abandoned and, consequently, many seccatoi fell into disrepair.

However, there has been a revival: restoration projects for seccatoi (like the Seccatoio Fresci), conservation of chestnut orchards, promotion of local chestnut flour production, tourism and cultural festivals (such as Raggiolo’s festival) help keep the tradition alive. From about 2014 onward, efforts have been made to restore both the orchards and the drying house. The restoration of the seccatoio included rebuilding the roof, restoring the original doors and windows and reusing as many original stones as possible.

Though today chestnuts may not always be dried in all restored seccatoi in the exact historic way (due to practical or legal constraints), the restoration is important to preserve architecture, memory, tradition, landscape, and educational value.