PENNA

Mezze penne rigate represent the most popular and appreciated variant of one of the most iconic shapes of Italian pasta: penne rigate. Contrary to what the name suggests, the half pen does not actually halve its length compared to the lined pen (it maintains approximately ¾ of it) and retains the same width and thickness as the latter. Therefore we cannot talk about half pens without retracing the history that gave rise to the pen.

A story marked by a very specific date, 11 March 1865, when Giovanni Battista Capurro, a well-known pasta maker from San Martino d'Albano (now a Genoese district) patented a machine that cuts pasta diagonally without breaking it. Until then that step was done manually with scissors causing some inaccuracies on the final shape with its jagged and irregular edge.