SAN MARINO. - One of the smallest (60.357 sq. km.) and the oldest (at least since the 9th century) independent State in Europe.
I. GEOGRAPHY
Its territory, enclosed between the provinces of Forlì and Pesaro-Urbino, consists of a series of hills dominated by the bare crest of Mount Titano (749 m.), on which are found the crops (cereals, vines, olives) that, together with livestock raising (cattle and pigs) and artisan activity (pottery), form the basis of the local economy. The population amounts to 12,300 inhabitants, of whom 1,850 live in the capital, San Marino, which stands at an altitude of 643 m.The Republic, which is united to Italy by treaties of friendship and economic conventions, is governed by two Captains Regent, elected every six months, who rule with the assistance of several Councils and Congresses, also elective and frequently renewed. The territory is administratively divided into 10 castles.
II. HISTORY
The legend of the 9th-10th centuries traces the origins of the Republic of Mount Titano to St. MARINO (v.), a stonecutter from the island of Arbe, who, together with his companion Leo, is said to have landed around the middle of the 4th century on the shore of Rimini to work on the restoration of the port and walls devastated by the Liburnians; but then, because of the harsh work and to escape, as a Christian, the persecution of Diocletian, he retired with Leo to a cave on the mountain, where soon other companions in work and faith followed him. A noblewoman of Rimini, Felicitas, donated the mountain to Marino after he had converted her to the Christian faith.St. Gaudentius, bishop of Rimini, is said to have conferred the diaconate on Marino. The hermitage developed into a small independent religious community, and soon on the summit of the mountain a chapel in honor of St. Peter and a monastery were erected, around which dwellings multiplied, forming the first nucleus of the future city of San Marino.
The barbarian invasions that devastated Italy spared San Marino, which, because of its inaccessible position and its bleak poverty, offered nothing to the plunderers. But the subsequent incursions of the Saracens, Magyars, and Normans forced the Sammarinese to strengthen their natural defenses by building the three towers, La Rocca or Guaita, La Cesta or Fratta, and Il Montale, which, joined by solid walls, made the nascent stronghold of freedom impregnable. They also expanded their original domain at the expense of the Counts of Carpegna and the monks of St. Gregory in Conca.
Meanwhile, the Arengo, or assembly of household heads, was constituted, and statutes were written, the oldest of which still preserved dates to 1295; the last is from 1599 and, in its fundamental lines, is still in force.
The first dangers that San Marino had to overcome came
SAN MARINO - The Cathedral, designed by architect D. Serra (1826-38). San Marino.
from the feudal bishops of the nearby sees of Rimini and Montefeltro, who advanced claims of lordship over Mount Titano, whose independence was recognized by the Holy See in 1291. Even the bishop-count of Montefeltro, who had long insisted on his territorial claims, finally renounced them in 1368. Around the middle of the 15th century it had to defend itself against Sigismondo Malatesta, who had attempted to scale La Rocca. It then allied itself with Pius II, with Federico, Duke of Urbino, and with Alfonso of Aragon, King of Naples. At the end of the victorious war it was rewarded with Fiorentino, Montegiardino, Serravalle, and Faetano.
The Arengo of household heads was replaced in the mid-15th century by the closed Great Council, composed of sixty citizens. Cesare Borgia, Duke of Romagna, held the Republic of Mount Titano for about six months in 1503. After forty years, Pope Paul III sent five hundred soldiers to take possession of San Marino, but the Sammarinese independence emerged unscathed and overcame every subsequent threat.
The Great Council reduced its membership to 45, and the nobles obtained various privileges; an aristocratic-oligarchic regime arose, the administration of justice was entrusted to a foreign judge, the commissioner of laws; the right of asylum was restricted; an Edict (1707) was issued that punished idlers with perpetual exile.
When Urban VIII annexed the Duchy of Urbino to the Papal States (1631), he reconfirmed San Marino’s independence, granting it protection and customs privileges. In the 18th century, Cardinal Giulio Alberoni, papal legate for Romagna, suddenly (1739) occupied the Republic of Mount Titano, which annoyed him as a “blemish” in the midst of the Papal States, to annex it to the Papal States. The fierce resistance of the inhabitants, combined with their prudent diplomatic skill, forced the papal troops to withdraw on 5 February 1740, a day still solemnly commemorated: Clement XII ordered that San Marino’s traditional franchises be restored, and concluded a treaty of perpetual friendship. When Cardinal Luigi Valenti Gonzaga, legate in Romagna, again besieged San Marino (1786), he met with the disapproval of Pius VI, and the Republic’s freedom was preserved: its memory is commemorated on the day of the patron saint (the fifth Sunday after Easter).
Napoleon, having conquered Lombardy, asked San Marino for permission to pass through its territory and offered cannons, wheat, and part of the territories conquered in neighboring states. On the advice of the citizen Antonio Onofri, the Council accepted, paying for, a thousand quintals of grain because of the famine raging, but refused the offered territories. Even Metternich had San Marino’s legitimate existence recognized at the Congress of Vienna.
During the Italian Risorgimento, the State of Mount Titano offered generous hospitality to Italian exiles. Even Garibaldi experienced the hospitality of San Marino when, pursued by the French and Austrians, he crossed into its territory (31 July 1849), where he disbanded his legion. Two years later (June 1851), for having prolonged asylum for some deputies of the Roman Constituent Assembly, San Marino was occupied by Austro-Papal forces: its territory was cleared only after the surrender of the political refugees.
In the events of 1859-60, San Marino remained neutral; with the formation of Italian unity, it enjoyed uninterrupted peace, attending to the drafting of laws and institutions suited to the new needs of its citizens.
Foreign speculators attempted to establish a casino there, a new Monte Carlo (1868), accompanying their request with generous offers, including the construction of a railway to Rimini, but the Captains Regent replied that in the Republic that honesty of which it was so proud would cease. The attempt was deemed in vain in 1879. Only in 1949 did the government of San Marino, though reluctantly, have recourse to the financial expedient of the casino, which was, however, definitively closed two years later.
A treaty of friendship and good neighborliness exists between the Republic and Italy: concluded on 22 March 1862, it was renewed in 1877, 1897, 1914, and 1948. The peaceful democratic revolution of 25 March 1906 restored the original system of election to the Great and General Council, without distinction of categories between nobles and commoners, renewable by one-third every three years. In September 1920 universal suffrage with proportional representation was adopted.
Events on the peninsula often reverberated in the small Republic. In 1915 it broke off diplomatic relations with the two Central Powers, and a contingent of its volunteers fought alongside the Italian army. Fascism also took hold on Mount Titano, only to wane there as elsewhere on 25 July 1943; the traditional liberties were restored. In the Second World War, too, numerous refugees (about 100,000) took refuge there. After the Germans, the Allies camped there.
III. LEGAL STATUS OF THE CHURCH
Although the Republic of San Marino maintains a diplomatic representative at the Holy See with the rank of Minister, it has not accredited a diplomatic representative of the Holy See within its own government. Ecclesiastically, San Marino is subject to the jurisdiction of two Italian dioceses: Rimini and Montefeltro.The territory lies, in fact, on the border between the conciliar regions of Romagna and the Marches. The greater part, however, falls within the latter conciliar region, forming part of the territory of the diocese of Montefeltro with its own forane vicariate (San Marino) comprising the parishes of San Marino, Acquaviva (dedicated to St Andrew the Apostle), San Giovanni sotto le Penne, Borgo Maggiore (dedicated to Sts Antimo and Marino), Chiesanuova (dedicated to St John the Baptist), Domagnano (dedicated to St Michael the Archangel), Fiorentino (dedicated to St Bartholomew the Apostle), and Montegiardino (dedicated to St Lawrence the Martyr). Only two parishes belong to the diocese of Rimini and thus to the conciliar region of Romagna; these are included in the forane vicariate of Verucchio: Falciano (dedicated to St Peter the Apostle) and Serravalle (dedicated to St Andrew the Apostle).
As is well known, the Republic does not possess its own civil code (there is only the Penal Code promulgated in 1878); in matters of civil and public law, the fundamental laws are contained in the second and fourth books of the Statutes of the 16th century, which are based on Roman law and canon law. The latter therefore regulates almost all matters concerning relations between civil and religious authority and matters pertaining to matrimonial law. Subsequent legislation, however, although not substantially altering these relations, has been influenced by new political or jurisprudential trends, not always favourable to the Church. In recent times, it is worth noting, among other things, the favour shown by San Marino’s courts to Italian divorcees who, on the basis of the Republic’s Treaty of Friendship and Good Neighbourliness with the Kingdom of Italy of 31 March 1939 (art. 5, nn. 1 and 7, § 11), sought annulments of marriages to be decreed in Italy. The social-communist government, which came to power in the political elections of 5 September 1943, 11 March 1945, and 27 February 1949, then drew up plans for the introduction of civil marriage, though these have not yet been enacted into law.
Pietro Palazzini
IV. ART
The city is surrounded by ancient walls—begun in the 13th century, subsequently enlarged and recently restored—which terminate at the three towers or “penne” of Guaita, Fratta, and Montale. Beyond these, the sheer drop of the mountain rendered any further fortification unnecessary. Set on three ridges along the crest, the three towers give the mountain its characteristic profile; they are the emblem of the Republic, which has represented them in its coat of arms.The city has narrow, steep streets and—apart from a few palaces of the 16th and 17th centuries—simple houses in which every ancient element has been carefully preserved. The only surviving medieval monument is the church of San Francesco, dating from the 14th century, altered in various periods and internally transformed in the 18th century. Within it remain an interesting fragment of ancient fresco decoration (by a late 14th-century Rimini school) and some altarpieces (by an Umbrian school of the 15th century, by Girolamo da Cotignola, and by Guercino). The ancient pieve dedicated to the holy founder, situated in the highest part of the city, probably retained a Romanesque character; it was demolished at the beginning of the 19th century to make way for a larger basilica, completed in 1838 by the Bolognese architect D. Serra in Neoclassical style. Adjacent to it, completely transformed, is the ancient sacellum of St Peter, whose foundation is traditionally attributed to St Marino himself. In 1884, the new Palazzo Pubblico was completed, designed by the Roman architect F. Azzurri in a medieval-inspired style reflecting the historicist tendencies of the time. The city also possesses a small museum, containing various objects but including some notable pieces, and a library important for local history and for the history of the Italian Risorgimento. See pl. CXV.