A saint’s mountain refuge still draws Europe’s oldest republic claim
San Marino, fifth-smallest country on Earth, is a landlocked microstate on Italy’s Apennine slopes, larger only than Vatican City among peninsula enclaves. It uses the euro and sits in the Council of Europe without joining the EU.
Just over 61 square kilometres hold around 33,500 people, with the capital perched on Monte Titano at 749 metres and the largest town, Dogana, in Serravalle. The republic dates its founding to AD 301 and claims to be the oldest sovereign state still in existence. Tradition sends stonecutter Marinus from Rab (Croatia) to Rimini and then Titano’s heights. Legend says he fled persecution under Diocletian and built a small church on the mountain, though firm evidence of a monastic community begins only in the fifth or sixth century.
In 1291 Bishop Ildebrandino’s judgment backed San Marino against Montefeltro dues; 1320 brought Chiesanuova, and 1463 added Faetano, Fiorentino, Montegiardino, and Serravalle—borders largely fixed since. Cesare Borgia held the country for six months in 1503, and in 1543 an attack by Fabiano di Monte San Savino failed when his troops lost their way in fog, credited to Saint Quirinus. Cardinal Alberoni occupied it in 1739, but Pope Clement XII restored independence on Saint Agatha’s day in 1740.
Regent Antonio Onofri won Napoleon’s friendship in 1797, and the regents turned down his offer of more land for fear of later revenge. Garibaldi found refuge here during Italian unification, and Abraham Lincoln, made an honorary citizen, praised the republic’s endurance. Its own stamps, first issued in 1877, became a major source of income.
Italian is official; Sammarinese dialect lingers. San Marino abolished the death penalty in 1865, before any other state that still exists, and was mistakenly bombed by Allied aircraft on 26 June 1944.
Source: San Marino
