Celeste the 5th, elected Pope in 1294, resigned a short time later, and, having passed three years in retreat, chose as his place of meditation Mount Morrone in the neighbourhood of Sulmona. In Aquila the Feast of Pardon is still celebrated, in remembrance of the only Jubilee not celebrated in Rome, at which Celeste granted pardon to the poor and disinherited unable to buy indulgences.

The reasons for Celeste the 5th's refusal, celebrated by Dante in the Divine Comedy (Divina Commedia), are still unknown, but it is likely that this man who was for a time "the good shepherd" of these adopted lands had inherited from them the meekness that perhaps impeded him from putting up with the intrigues and stratagems of the throne of St. Peter.

In reality many sins of greed are today committed in Sulmona. From sugared almonds, served as a desert and greatly appreciated in the period of the Renaissance, when they concluded dinners and represented a sign of distinction, to nougat. Guardiagrele is instead renowned for the " sise delle monache", an optimal stuffed cake, whilst in the area of Teramo an exquisite chestnut cake can be savoured. Moreover the French came to stick their nose in this area before inventing their snobbish "crêpes", which are nothing more than the Teramo crepes.

The Abruzzo deserts can be accompanied in "liaisons dangereuses" by the Doc wines, sided by the rural wines. The Abruzzo cellars have long discovered that the regional grapes can produce quality wines. The driving forces are a great red wine, Montepulciano d'Abruzzo, a noble white wine, Trebbiano d'Abruzzo, and a wine that has made history, Controguerra. It would appear that the latter was the preferred wine of the Byzantium Pilate and his fellow countryman Ovid, who celebrated the beauty of the Abruzzo grapes and vines in verse in the IInd book of "Amori" ("Passions"). And is it this passion that is handed down from cellar to cellar in the production area of Marsicano and Peligna, the motherlands of prestigious Typical Geographic Indication wines such as Colli del Sangro, Valle Peligna and Colline Teatine (that also give their name to a refined Protected Denomination of Origin oil, such as Aprutino pescarese). It's a pity that D'Annunzio, the Abruzzo poet, was teetotal. Throughout his life, he did nothing but cultivate elegance and had numerous mistresses, but he could not find anything better to praise the native wines than the following words "I don't know them, but the fragrance is enough to intoxicate me". We believe that he then toasted with water.