History of San Marino

San Marino is named after the Christian stonemason Saint Marinus, who created a mountainside colony to escape persecution.

According to legend, San Marino was founded in 301 AD[1] when a Christian stonemason Marinus (lit. from the sea), later venerated as Saint Marinus, emigrated in 297 AD from the Dalmatian island of Rab, when Emperor Diocletian issued a decree calling for the reconstruction of the city walls of Rimini, destroyed by Liburnian pirates.[1] Marinus later became a Deacon and was ordained by Gaudentius, the Bishop of Rimini; shortly after, he was "recognised" and accused by an insane woman of being her estranged husband, whereupon he quickly fled to Monte Titano to build a chapel and monastery and live as a hermit.[2] Later, the State of San Marino would bud from the centre created by this monastery.[2] Living in geographical isolation from the Diocletianic Persecution of Christians at the time, the mountain people were able to live peaceful lives. When this settlement of "refugee" mountain people was eventually discovered, the owner of the land, Felicissima, a sympathetic lady of Rimini, bequeathed it to the small Christian community of mountain dwellers, recommending to them to remain always united. This foundation tale is at the base of the claim as world's oldest surviving republic.

Evidence of the existence of a community on Mount Titano dates back to the Middle Ages. That evidence comes from a monk named Eugippio, who reports in several documents going back to 511 that another monk lived here. In memory of the stonecutter, the land was renamed "Land of San Marino", and was changed to its present-day name, "Republic of San Marino".

The first attested government structure was composed of a self-governed assembly known as the Arengo, which consisted of the heads of each family (as in the original Roman Senate, the Patres). In 1243, the positions of Captains Regent (Capitani Reggenti) were established to be the joint heads of state. The state's earliest statutes date back to 1263. The Holy See confirmed the independence of San Marino in 1631.[3]

The basis of San Marino's government is the multi-document Constitution of San Marino, the first components of which were promulgated and became effective on 1 September 1600. Whether these documents amount to a written constitution depends upon how one defines the term. The political scientist Jorri Duursma claims that "San Marino does not have an official constitution as such. The first legal documents which mentioned San Marino's institutional organs were the Statutes of 1600."[10][11][12]

On 17 October 1739, Cardinal Giulio Alberoni, Papal Governor of Ravenna, used military force to occupy the country, imposed a new constitution, and endeavored to force the Sammarinese to submit to the government of the Papal States.[4] He was aiding certain rebels, and acting possibly contrary to the orders of Pope Clement XII. However, civil disobedience occurred, and clandestine notes were written to the Pope to appeal for justice. On 5 February 1740, three and a half months after the occupation began, the Pope recognised San Marino's rights, restoring independence. 5 February is the feast day of Saint Agatha, after which she became a patron saint of San Marino.[13]

After Napoleon's campaign of Italy, San Marino found itself on the border between the Kingdom of Italy and long-time ally the Papal States. On 5 February 1797, when, with the arrival of a letter from General Louis Alexandre Berthier addressed to the Regents, it was required to arrest and consign the Bishop of Rimini, Monsignor Vincenzo Ferretti, accused of instigating crimes against the French Empire, who fled with all his possessions to San Marino and refusal would result in the immediate intervention of French troops.

The Government of San Marino replied that it would do everything possible to fulfill the request, even though, in reality, the bishop was able to flee across the border.

A solution was found by one of the Regents, Antonio Onofri, who inspired in Napoleon a friendship and respect toward the sovereign state. Napoleon was won to the commonality in cause with the ideals of liberty and humanity extolled in San Marino's humble founding and wrote in recognition of its cultural value in a letter to Gaspard Monge, scientist and commissary of the French Government for the Sciences and the Arts who was at the time stationed in Italy;[14] further promising to guarantee and protect the independence of the Republic even so far as offering to extend its territory according to its needs. While grateful for the former, the offer of territorial expansion was politely declined by San Marino.[15]

Napoleon issued orders that exempted San Marino's citizens from any type of taxation and gave them 1,000 quintals (over 2,200 lb or 1,000 kg) of wheat as well as four cannons; although for unknown reasons, the cannons were ultimately never brought into San Marino.[16]

Napoleon's treatment of San Marino may be better understood in light of the ongoing French Revolution (1789–1799) where France was undergoing drastic political reform. Being a surviving example of republican institution, not only under threat of Papal interference but also not hostile to the French Republic (as Venice Genoea, or Switzerland) may have gained enough sympathy to secure independence. The state was recognized by Napoleon by the Treaty of Tolentino, in 1797. Onofri will keep negotiating favourable terms with the Northern Italian "Sister Republics" and later Kingdom of Italy.

While Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary on 23 May 1915, San Marino remained neutral. Italy, suspecting that San Marino could harbour Austrian spies who could be given access to its new radiotelegraph station, tried to forcefully establish a detachment of Carabinieri on its territory and then suspended any telephone connections with the Republic when it did not comply.

Two groups of 10 volunteers each did join Italian forces in the fighting on the Italian front, the first as combatants and the second as a medical corps operating a Red Cross field hospital. It was the presence of this hospital that later caused Austrian authorities to suspend diplomatic relations with San Marino.[23]

Although propaganda articles appeared in The New York Times as early as 4 June 1915 claiming that San Marino declared war on Austria-Hungary,[24] the republic never entered the war.[25]

San Marino in the 1920s, still a largely agrarian society, experienced political turmoil influenced by the events in Fascist Italy, culminating in June 1921 in the murder in Serravalle of Italian doctor and Fascist sympathiser Carlo Bosi by local leftists, which led to condemnation by the surrounding Italian population and threats of retaliation by Italian squadristi. The government decided to ask Italy for help in the form of a detachment of 30 Carabinieri. As in Italy, fascism, under the Sammarinese Fascist Party led by Giuliano Gozi, eventually took over government of San Marino, causing the Socialist newspaper, Nuovo Titano, to cease publication.

The 1930s was an era of public works and reinvention of the Republic's economy, with the construction of the San Marino-Rimini railway that connected it to the Italian railway network and modernization of the country's infrastructures that paved the way to its present status as a major tourist destination.[26]

Guards of the Council speaking to British army personnel in October 1944

San Marino was mostly uninvolved in the Second World War. In September 1940, press reports claimed that it had to have declared war on Britain in support of Italy;[27] however, this was later denied by the Sammarinese government.[28]

On 26 June 1944, it was bombed by the British Royal Air Force which mistakenly believed it had been overrun by German forces and was being used to amass stores and ammunition. The railway was destroyed and 63 civilians died during the operation. The British government later admitted the bombing had been unjustified and that it had been executed on receipt of erroneous information.[29]

San Marino's hope to escape further involvement was shattered on 27 July 1944 when Major Gunther, commander of the German forces in Forlì, delivered a letter from German headquarters in Ferrara to San Marino's government declaring that the country's sovereignty could not be respected if, in view of military requirements, the necessity of transit of troops and vehicles arose. The communiqué, however, underlined that wherever possible occupation would be avoided.[30]

Fears were confirmed when on 30 July a German medical corps colonel presented himself with an order for the requisition of two public buildings for the establishment of a military hospital. On the following day, 31 July 1944, in view of the likely invasion by German forces, the state sent three letters of protest: one to Joachim von Ribbentrop, German Foreign Minister, one to Adolf Hitler and one to Benito Mussolini,[30] the latter delivered by a delegation to Serafino Mazzolini, a high-ranking diplomat in the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Demanding to meet Mussolini with the intention to ask that its neutrality be respected, the following day Mazzolini took them to see Mussolini, who promised to contact the German authorities and intervene in favour of San Marino's request.[31]

San Marino was a refuge for over 100000 civilians[32] who sought safety on the passing of Allied forces over the Gothic Line[1] during the Battle of Rimini, an enormous effort of relief by the inhabitants of a country that at that time counted only 15,000 people.[30]

Despite all this, Germany invaded San Marino on 13 September 1944.[33] The Germans and Allies clashed on San Marino's soil from 17 September to 20 September at the Battle of San Marino; Allied troops occupied San Marino after that, but only stayed for two months before leaving.

After the war, a social-communist government was installed in San Marino, composed by the Sammarinese Communist Party and the Sammarinese Socialist Party. This is considered one of the first times anywhere in the world that a communist government was democratically elected into power.[34][35][36] The coalition lasted from 1945 to 1957, when the Rovereta affair occurred.

1960 saw the enlargement of universal suffrage to women.

Having joined the Council of Europe as a full member in 1988, San Marino held the rotating chair of the organisation during the first half of 1990.

Following the fall of the Soviet bloc, the Sammarinese Communist Party peacefully dissolved in 1990 and restructured as the Sammarinese Democratic Progressive Party replacing the former hammer-and-sickle logo (a communist motif representing the rights of workers) with the image of a drawing of a dove by Pablo Picasso.[37]

San Marino became a member of the United Nations in 1992.