The first traces of Picciano can be found in 1049 in the Charta Offersionis with which Bernardo, Count of Penne, donated land and buildings for the establishment of a Benedictine abbey in its territory. This 1049 is the first attestation of the existence of an inhabited center called Picciano ', terminus ante quem with respect to which the town can therefore be considered founded.
There are several legends on the name Picciano, the most credible traces the name to the presence of a group of shepherds dedicated to the cult of the Goddess Pithia, the name therefore dates back if not to the Roman era to the first period of the Latin Middle Ages with a variant passing through Piczano as attested by the Carta Conveniae which will be cited below.

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In 1049, therefore, the late medieval period characterized by notable contrasts between the Lombards and the Normans also in the vestina area and the center of these clashes will be the Abbey of Santa Maria from which the history of Picciano will be inextricably linked.
In an era of rural lords, power also passed through these private churches and among them the various lords competed for offers at the monastery of S. Clemente a Casauria, it was only Bernardo who between 1051 and 1063, as per the Charta Offersionis del notary Azzone, will donate more than twenty churches to the same Monastery of Picciano which he created and led at that time by the abbot Teodemario. Mills on the river Fino, churches, bells, fiefdoms with men, women and children in tow will be donated. The donation went through the creation of the Church of San Silvestro, which was endowed with all the aforementioned goods, and which was then donated to Picciano as a whole. Curiously, the abbot of San Silvestro was ordered to donate, on the day of the Assumption (August 15), 24 pizzas and a pig to the abbot of Picciano. It should be noted that even today the feast of the Assumption is celebrated in Piccianello, a hamlet of considerable size, even if the church is dedicated to Picciano.

Returning to the story of donations, intricate facts will bind Guglielmo Tascione (or di Tassone), Alberico, Abbot of Santa Maria di Picciano, and Benedict Abbot of San Giovanni in Venere. In 1084 there will be an exchange of churches: in S. Giovanni in Venere castles and churches in the territory of Ilice, the current Elice, in Picciano the Church of S. Panfilo a Spoltore, with an interpenetration of possessions on the verge of abstraction. There will be other exchanges in which Count Ruggieri, Roberto di Manoppello, the Theatine Bishop Berardo, Eriberto Bishop of Penne and the prior of the Maiella will attend as guarantors. However, these are unfavorable changes for Picciano, generated mostly by spiritual reasons and which will be canceled a few years later.

The carta convenientiae attests to Alberico's protests, confirming at the same time the status of the Church of convenience of S. Maria di Picciano which the various Longobard and Norman lords use for their private struggles. It remains however that in 1110 Alberico, despite the protests, will be elected Abbot of S. Clemente a Casauria where he will finally be able to influence in a more incisive way on the various lords of the place.

In 1122 other exchanges: Ruggero Tascione donated two fiefdoms of the monastery of S. Paterniano to S. Maria di Picciano, however turning the income of S. Panfilo di Spoltore to S. Clemente.

There will be many exchanges, many exchanges over time of different size and weight: 1139, 1144, 1145, all generally concerning the new role of bishops, and that of Penne in particular, and the question of tithes. In that of 1144 in particular Berardo, Abbot of Picciano in those years, temporarily gave to his brother Rainaldo two fiefs with the relative colonists with the obligation of visits and oblations on fixed days, and a lunch based on bread, meat and wine to offer to the monks the day of S. Egidio.
Subsequently the abbots and monks of Picciano will clash vigorously with the Bishops Oderisio and Grimaldo, pugnacious bishops accustomed to long struggles and defenders of papal power who, however, will have to yield to Norman power which will also be felt with the presence of King Roger II who, by the hand of the executioner Oderisio di Paleria, he confirmed, in 1170, the donations and privileges that Gozzolino di Loreto had granted to the monastery of Picciano.

Donations of churches and territories also meant an exchange of men, of fiefdoms, of entire families and social groups who thus find themselves having to work and live now for one, now for the other. People will be victims of a rhapsodic lust for power that over time will mark the character of places and inhabitants.
The events of the Abbey will be alternate up to the privilege with which Charles V in 1517 will practically mark its passage under the Olivetans of L'Aquila.
There are no significant manifestations of the periods between the sixteenth and late eighteenth centuries, a sign of the gradual loss of importance that the place slowly underwent, however closing its inhabitants in a fierce and strenuous defense of their values of independence and cultural identity.

With the transfer of the abbey to L'Aquila and the subsequent fire that totally destroyed it, the presence of Picciano in the Vestino area diminishes until it fades. The Badiali princes, however, remain to the point that until 1945 peasants and breeders were required to pay an annual sum to the Parish, the Badia in fact, as a contribution for the use of the land; it was the so-called level, a form of emphyteusis of which many lands are still burdened, dating back to the medieval period in which the Badia di Picciano obtained houses and land from the Counts of Penne.

Over time, therefore, the history of Picciano has been changing. Its importance has shrunk and agriculture has essentially remained a livelihood agriculture for a long part of its history. The exploitation of its territory by barons and landowners is testified by the large number of farms and sharecroppers present on the municipal territory. A decisive turning point took place at the end of the nineteenth century. The birth of a fertile artisan tradition makes Picciano the country of tailors and shoemakers with dozens of active, fixed and itinerant shops, a large number of employees and a presence so strong as to relaunch the urbanization of the area. The economic movement generated by that favorable situation leads to the foundation of a furnace that for years will be a resource for all the inhabitants of Picciano, attracting inhabitants from the surrounding area, creating employment and sawing with a certain dawn of the industrial era in the whole area. Vestina. Throughout the twentieth century the history of the Patricelli furnace is the history of Picciano. In times of crisis it will be a crisis for the country, in good times it will be employment for everyone. The activity of the furnace will also change the physical face of Picciano, demolishing hills and creating building areas and at the same time supplying construction materials to the 8-10 construction companies present in the area even simultaneously. After the Second World War it will be the only barrier to emigration, it will be a source of cultural and social updating and its closure, at the beginning of the eighties, will determine the beginning of the demographic and economic decline which in these years reaches its maximum.