San Marino is a small European nation located in the Apennine Mountains. The economy of San Marino is largely dependent on tourism, with many people coming to the country to explore its beautiful countryside, historic sites, and vibrant culture. Agriculture is also an important sector of the economy with wheat, corn, olives, and other crops being some of the major crops grown in San Marino. Manufacturing is another key sector with production of clothing, textiles, electronics, furniture and other goods being some of the major products exported from San Marino. Mining for minerals such as marble and limestone is also an important industry in the country as well as energy production from geothermal sources. Fishing has also become increasingly important in recent years as many people come to fish in the country’s waters.
Despite cuts in Other Countries in Europe and neoliberal steps to dismantle the welfare state, San Marino has maintained its high standard of living and effective health care, considered one of the best in the world. The government seeks to maintain the high standard of living through a program of economic development, focusing in particular on support for traditional craftsmen and agriculture.
On April 1, 2003, Piermarino Menicucci and Giovanni Giannoni were elected Capitanes Regentes while Augusto Casali was appointed Secretary of State and Foreign Minister.
In October 2004, Giuseppe Arzilli and Roberto Raschi were elected regents. Fiorenzo Stolfi was appointed Secretary of State and Foreign Minister.
The Socialist Party and the Democrats increased their mandate share in the June 2006 election, reaching 20 – just one less term than the ruling Christian Democrats. One of the biggest challenges facing the new coalition government was to increase transparency and efficiency in parliament and improve relations between this and the heads of state.
PDCS leader Ernesto Benedettini declared in August 2007 that San Marino needed an independent project to secure its water supply.
Monuments. – The topography of the military architectures of San Marino is remarkable, clearly defining its panoramic physiognomy, while indicating the various developments of the small state over the centuries. It shows traces of three extensions defined by three concentric walls. The oldest of them dates back to the XIII-XIV centuries. Until that time the city had to be limited to the upper part, between the Pieve and the place called dei Fossi, where the Biordi house is located, traditionally indicated as the first meeting place of the Arengo. Nearby we find traces of the oldest buildings in San Marino: arches cut into the rock of the mountain (Biordi, Bonelli, Gozi, etc.), two fragmentary towers (Bonelli and Della Balda houses). Here also stood the fourteenth-century fortress (later transformed) and the parish church rebuilt in the century still stands today. XIX, in which there is some sculptural fragment of the Romanesque age referring to the old church, the first historical record of which dates back to 1113; but which is already transformed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The second set of walls was carried out between the end of the century. XIV and the beginning of the XV, that is when the republic began to fortify itself against the Malatesta. The door was then opened (1396), then closed, called “of the Collegio Vecchio”, the Rocca was enlarged, and the second wall was extended up to the second echelon of the mountain, on which the tower called the “Fratta” was built. Between the era of the first and second walls, the minor conventuals built their church, which was later transformed, but retaining traces of its fourteenth-century origin in the facade, in the apse and in the adjacent cloister. L’ the building was begun by a master Manetto and was completed in 1361 by master Battista da Como. There are preserved two paintings by Girolamo da Cotignola, one S. Francesco del Guercino, and for this church the four Saints by Niccolò Alunno were painted, now in the town hall.
In the century XVI the last city walls extended up to the third echelon of the mountain on which a third tower called del Montale was built. Then the arched door of S. Francesco that the friars had built in 1451 for their convent became – and still is – the city gate. The Porta della Ripa was also built in 1525. In the same century XVI the fortress was modified, called “della Guaita”, which was built in the ‘300 and rebuilt between 1416 and 1482.
The threatening towers and the strong crenellated curtains remain; while there are traces of the primitive and very strong dry-raised walls with large blocks on the road that leads from the Pieve to the Rocca. Many still existing buildings belong to the century. XVI (Braschi house with three orders of arches, Belluzzi-Filippi house, etc.). A painting by F. Zuccari is kept in the Capuchin church, which was built in 1549 outside the third enclosure. Baroque is instead the Pieve dei Valloni, near which there is a small museum, with Umbrian-Etruscan objects, medieval fragmentary marbles, Greek-Byzantine tablets, a polyptych attributed to Giulio Romano, a canvas by Batoni. Furthermore, two Saints by Michele Giambono are kept in the town hall.
The modern age has left two notable buildings in San Marino: the new government building and the parish church.
The latter was rebuilt on a previous medieval building, in neoclassical style, by the Bolognese architect Antonio Serra, who designed it with three naves with a barrel vault and mighty colonnades that extend into the apse and the portico of the facade. Its construction lasted from 1826 to 1855.
The elevation of the Government Palace, at Pianello, was instead devised by Francesco Azzurri in 1894, with the intention of evoking a medieval building in its invoice. In fact, it has a façade with a portico with three Gothic arches and similar balconies: cornices with corbels and battlements, an elevating tower grafted onto its walls, an interior made in the same style, with a staircase and a rich council hall with a fresco by Emilio Retrosi.
In front of the building is the monument to Liberty, which is also the work of the sculptor Stefano Galletti, also from the 19th century.