More than 1700 years have passed since the year 301, there have been countless invasions, revolutions, and wars, countries have come and gone, empires have risen and fallen, but one thing has remained constant on the ever-changing world map throughout all this period of time: the Republic of San Marino.
San Marino is a small country, the fifth smallest independent state in the world, both in size (larger only then Tuvalu, Nauru, the Principality of Monaco, and Vatican City) and population (Palau, Nauru, Tuvalu, and Vatican City are the only ones with less inhabitants), and it is tucked in between the Apennine Mountains, completely surrounded by Italy and near the Italian seaside resort of Rimini. Most of its 33,000 inhabitants speak Italian, which is the official language of the country, and the local Romagnol language also spoken in the surrounding area.
So, how did such a tiny state survive for so long in a historically highly contested region? How did it become the oldest surviving state in the world? Why is it not part of Italy? Is it really over 1700 years old? To answer all these questions about San Marino we have to start with, well, San Marino, or Saint Marinus.
Position and map of San Marino (TUBS, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0).
The foundation of San Marino
According to tradition, Saint Marinus was a stonemason born in the late third century on the island of Rab, today in Croatia, but back then part of the Roman Empire. He moved to Rimini with another stonecutter called Leo to help with the reconstruction of the city walls that were destroyed by pirates, and they worked on extracting stones from the mountains surrounding the town. Both Marinus and Leo were Christians and started preaching their beliefs to the locals, but these were the times just before the Diocletianic Persecution, and they soon had to flee to the mountains.
Traditional sources recount that a woman from his native Dalmatia came to Rimini claiming to be the legitimate wife of Marinus, and threatened to report him to Roman authorities for being a Christian, and this prompted the escape from the city. Marinus fled to the top of Monte Titano where he founded a chapel and a monastery on the mountain, and gathered a small community, while Leo (later venerated as Saint Leo of Montefeltro) founded another town nearby, now called San Leo. The Dalmatian woman later reportedly found Marinus, but he convinced her to convert to Christianity.
Soon, the new settlement was discovered by the locals, which initially opposed their presence. Among these people were the owner of the land, a rich woman from Rimini called Donna Felicissima and her son Verissimo. While confronting Marinus, Verissimo fell to the ground, paralyzed, and the saint cured him. Felicissima thanked him for this miracle by gifting the land of Monte Titano to the community and converting to Christianity with her whole family. This land later came to be known as Terra di San Marino (Land of Saint Marinus). Years later, on his death bed, Marinus reportedly uttered the phrase “Relinquo vos liberos ab utroque homine”, a Latin expression meaning “I leave you free from both men”, the two men likely referring to the emperor and the pope.
The traditional date of the founding of San Marino is September 3, 301, while Marinus reportedly died in 366. How much of this story is real and how much is legend is still a matter of debate. Most tales about the saint come from a manuscript written around the tenth century called Vita Sancti Marini (Life of Saint Marinus), but there are different versions of each legend. His last words are also probably just legendary and make much more sense centuries later, when the sovereignty of San Marino could have been challenged by the authority of both the pope and the Holy Roman Emperor. Having the alleged words of a saint on their side, affirming their independence from either power, gave the small Republic much more legitimacy. So, however legendary, the phrase became a pillar of San Marino’s independence and culture.
Painting of Saint Marinus.
From small settlement to independent country
Nevertheless, a small community existed on Monte Titano in the Early Middle Ages, with the earliest report being a document from the year 511 by a writer called Eugippius that talks about a monk, probably one of the first successors of Marinus, living here. A more substantial proof of the existence of San Marino in the Middle Ages comes from the Placito Feretrano of the year 885. This document, actually a ruined eleventh-century copy of the original, tells of a judicial dispute between Delto, bishop of Rimini, and Stefano, abbot of a monastery in San Marino. Delto accused Stefano of usurping some land, but the ruling established that the territory never belonged to the diocese of Rimini. While this doesn’t prove that San Marino was a fully independent state, as it was probably subject to either the pope or the emperor, it is still a proof that a castle, monastery, and free and organized community existed on Monte Titano.
The age of the comuni in Italy came soon afterwards and San Marino was just one among a great number of small autonomous city-states located throughout the Italian Peninsula. Starting around the year 1000 San Marino was governed by the Arengo, an assembly of all the heads of the most powerful local families, similarly to other councils that existed in most Italian city-states at that time. In 1243 the Republic established the position of Capitani Reggenti (Capitains Regent), the two heads of state elected every six months. This position, inspired by the ancient consuls of the Roman Republic, still exists to this day.
At that time, San Marino was still nominally under the fiefdom of Montefeltro (centered in San Leo), in the Papal States, but in 1291 the first recognition of the independence of San Marino came in a papal bull by Pope Nicholas IV. Just five years later, in 1296, its independence is confirmed by another judicial document. A dispute arose between a bishop and some local city-states about some unpaid tributes, and it was determined that, while the towns of San Leo, Maiolo, and Talamello didn’t have to pay because they had a special privilege, San Marino was not subject to taxes by right, since it was Saint Marinus who left them free with his legendary words.
Fighting for survival
Meanwhile, the territory of the Republic was expanding. During the eleventh century, the community needed a place to hold a weekly market and, in order to do so, founded the town of Borgo Maggiore (then known as Mercatale), while in 1243 San Marino bought the rights to collect taxes in the villages of Acquaviva and Ventoso. In 1320, the town of Chiesanuova voluntarily asked to become part of the Republic, that was thus expanded further, though only to territories immediately surrounding Monte Titano.
When in 1460 Pope Pius II promised to cede some more territories to the small Republic, the Malatesta family, lords of Rimini and governors of the lands involved in the dispute, protested and moved war against San Marino. The city-state allied with the Duchy of Urbino and was backed by the pope. The sammarinesi managed to win multiple times against the Malatesta, occupying their forts to the east of Monte Titano, and even threatening to reach Rimini. In 1463, the Patti di Fossombrone were signed, a peace treaty that recognized that the towns of Serravalle, Domagnano, Faetano, Montegiardino, and Fiorentino were now part of San Marino. The borders of San Marino, fixed more than 550 years ago with this treaty, are still unchanged to this day.
This war was just the first of various attempts by larger powers to occupy or conquer San Marino in the Early Modern Period. The next one came during the chaotic Italian Wars, when Cesare Borgia, a mercenary leader and illegitimate son of Pope Alexander VI, occupied the Republic in 1503. At that time, Borgia was on a quest to conquer Romagna and Marche in order to carve out a state for himself there and was supported by his father, but the pope died on the same year of the occupation of San Marino. The new pope, Pope Julius II, was a strong opponent of Borgia and forced him to leave San Marino, making the Republic free again after just a few months.
San Marino was threatened again in 1543, when a feudal lord from Tuscany, Fabiano di Monte San Savino, gathered an army to attack the Republic but failed, reportedly getting lost in a dense fog. To protect against more potential threats, San Marino signed a treaty of protection with Pope Clement VIII in 1602, which came into effect in 1631, when the Papal States again officially recognized the Republic as independent. However, a little over a hundred years later, the freedom of San Marino was again in danger.
View of the Guaita Tower, the largest of the three fortifications built during the Late Middle Ages on Monte Titano in San Marino (Commonists, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0).
Over time, the old Arengo was slowly replaced by the Consiglio Grande e Generale (Great and General Council), a parliament controlled by a few rich families that turned the Republic into an oligarchy. In 1737, some citizens plotted to overthrow the Council and reinstate the Arengo, but they were arrested. One of these conspirators was a member of an important family in the Papal States, but San Marino refused to move his case to a papal court.
After failed negotiations, Pope Clement XII sent Giulio Alberoni, cardinal and governor of Ravenna, to San Marino in October 1739, supposedly to liberate the citizens from the oppression of the oligarchs. As such, Alberoni was initially welcomed by the locals as a liberator, but it soon became clear that the cardinal was attempting to take control of the country to annex it to the territory of the pope. Alberoni took power by force and enacted a series of reforms, including abolishing the Capitani Reggenti and replacing them with a single governor appointed by the Papal States. Unsure about the methods of Alberoni, and under the pressure of international powers, the pope sent the governor of Perugia, Enrico Enriquez, to check how much the local population supported the reforms. When Enriquez reported that the entire population was opposed to Alberoni, San Marino was freed and regained its full independence on February 5, 1740.
How San Marino did not become part of Italy
San Marino was again surrounded by warring states during the Napoleonic Wars. During the Italian campaign of 1797, a French general threatened to attack the Republic if they didn’t arrest and hand over the bishop of Rimini, who was accused of plotting against the French and had fled to San Marino. The Capitani Reggenti promised to help the French but the bishop had already left the Republic.
During these talks, Napoleon grew fond of Antonio Onofri, one of the Regents, and the small country, seeing it as an example of the ideals of liberty that were at the base of the French Revolution. The general offered to extend the borders of San Marino to the sea, but Onofri politely refused. Onofri’s move likely saved the Republic from being seen as an ally of Napoleon and from potential negative repercussions after the end of the wars. In turn, Napoleon garanteed that San Marino would remain independent, made it exempt from taxation, and gifted large quantities of wheat to the population. The Republic remained in friendly relations with the French during this time while not being openly allied with them and, following the end of the wars, Onofri managed to gain international recognition for San Marino at the Congress of Vienna in 1815.
The mid nineteenth century was the time of the Italian Risorgimento, the political and social movement that was aiming to unify the region into a single country. Many sammarinesi took part in the revolts against foreign powers and the tiny state welcomed many refugees. After the revolutions of 1848, the Papal States were briefly replaced by the Roman Republic in February 1849, but this government lasted only until that July, before being overthrown by the French military.
Giuseppe Garibaldi, Italian general and one of the fathers of Italian unification, had to retreat from Rome and was hunted by French, Austrian, Spanish, and Neapolitan troops. Surrounded on all sides, Garibaldi sought refuge in San Marino, entering the neutral country before having received approval. Initially opposed, the Capitani Reggenti allowed Garibaldi and his men to stay in exchange for the guarantee that San Marino would remain independent if Italy was unified.
In the following years, Austria and the Papal States looked with suspicion at the Republic and planned to overtake it in 1853, before being stopped by French Emperor Napoleon III. In 1861, Italy was finally unified and, remembering the hospitality he received, Garibaldi kept his promise and left San Marino as an independent country, a status confirmed by a treaty of friendship with Italy in 1862. In 1906, the oligarchy was abolished after a referendum and the first free elections, with limited suffrage, were held.
San Marino from World War I until today
Despite having avoided becoming part of Italy, and being now surrounded by a friendly country, San Marino still wasn’t completely safe. During World War I, San Marino remained neutral but the Italians feared that the Republic could offer refuge to deserters and host Austrian spies, so they exerted a high level of control on the country’s activity and cut off connections. Nevertheless, some sammarinesi voluteered for the Italian Army and San Marino supported the Italian claim on the island of Rab, birthplace of Saint Marinus. This angered the Austrians but, in the end, the tiny state never entered the war.
With the rise of fascism in Italy, a fascist party was also founded in San Marino and quickly took power on October 1, 1922, almost a month before Mussolini’s March on Rome. The violent and oppressive nature of the government soon turned the country into a dictatorship modeled around what was happening in Italy at the same time, with the abolishment of every other party and the Consiglio Grande e Generale. The fascist government of Italy fell on July 25, 1943, and just three days later a large protest in San Marino obtained the abolishment of the dictatorship and called for new elections. After the elections, an anti-fascist government took office but months of violence between supporters of the two sides in the war followed.
In June 1944 San Marino was bombed by the British, who mistakenly believed that the country had fallen to the Germans. Indeed, the German troops came soon afterwards but San Marino protested the move citing its neutrality. German and British forces clashed in the only World War II battle fought on the territory of San Marino that September. The British troops won the battle and remained in San Marino for two months, before leaving and restoring, for the final time, the sovereignty of the country. During the war, San Marino ended up hosting over 100,000 refugees, despite a population of just 15,000.
After World War II, San Marino democratically elected a communist party to rule the country, and this caused some tension with Italy and other Western governments until 1957, when a constitutional crisis marked the end of the communist government and the normalization of international relations. San Marino never again faced external threats to its independence, and it is now a member of the United Nations and the Council of Europe.
Similarly to other small European states, San Marino is not part of the European Union but, thanks to a monetary agreement, it has used the euro as its currency since 2002, and it has its own euro coins. In 2022 San Marino became the first country in modern history with an openly gay head of state, when Paolo Rondelli was nominated as one of the two Capitani Reggenti. The country is now a popular destination for tourists, thanks to its culture and various historic attractions.
One of the signs with the phrase “Benvenuti nell’antica terra della libertà” (“Welcome to the ancient land of freedom”) at the border between Italy and San Marino (Szeder László, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0).
The land of freedom
So, did San Marino really survive as an independent state for more than 1700 years? Well, yes and no. There was likely a small community on Monte Titano in the age of the late Roman Empire, but its early history remains obscure and it’s hard to determine how much autonomy it really enjoyed, as however nominally or de facto independent, it wasn’t recognized as such until almost a millennium later. Nevertheless, San Marino’s long history of freedom and survival, even when surrounded by larger powers and after being occupied and threatened multiple times, remains incredibly impressive, and its existence today is a unique time window into a past of small medieval city-states.
Entering the Republic of San Marino, the phrase “Benvenuti nell’antica terra della libertà” (“Welcome to the ancient land of freedom”) greets visitors into the microstate. This short description, along with the national motto, “Libertas” (freedom in Latin), are not corny slogans for tourists, but true testaments of the country’s long-lasting independence and its unique culture.