Commemorazione del Carabiniere Scapaccino

Why it's special

Scapaccino, born here in 1802, was killed in Savoy in 1834 rather than break his oath, and the Arma dei Carabinieri still comes back to his home town to honour him.

Programme · 2026

224th anniversary of Scapaccino's birth, organised with the Carabinieri provincial command and the local Associazione Nazionale Carabinieri (ANC).

• It's a formal ceremony at the Scapaccino monument on the town-hall square, with the Carabinieri, the mayor and sometimes the family's descendants.
• In 2025 and 2026 it fell on a Saturday close to 15 February (15:00 in 2026).
• Anyone can come.

The town carries his name for a reason. Giovanni Battista Scapaccino was born here on 15 February 1802 and became the first member of the Arma dei Carabinieri — and the first Italian soldier of any corps — to be awarded the Gold Medal for Military Valour. In 1834, during the fighting at Les Échelles in Savoy, he chose death rather than shout a slogan against his oath.

So each February Incisa Scapaccino marks the anniversary of his birth. It's a solemn, formal affair rather than a festival: a blessed wreath at his monument, the provincial Carabinieri commander, the mayor, the parish, and Scapaccino's own descendants. In 2026 it was the 224th anniversary, marked with a laurel wreath on the town-hall square.

Not a tourist event, but if you're in town in mid-February it tells you who these hills raised. Details from the last recorded ceremony are above.