History of San Marino. Middle Ages / Modern and contemporary ages / Twentieth century and present time

Descrizione

The Editors: Luca Gorgolini e Stefano Pivato.

With thematic insights statutes and institutions / foreign relations / displacement / tourism / women / emigration / territory / art / archaeology / cultural institutes / newspapers and journalism.

At a time when common attitudes — especially among younger generations — seem increasingly marked by a kind of historical amnesia, reconstructing the past becomes, for a university, not only a scholarly task but also a civic responsibility. This is true not simply because of the familiar historians’ adage that “the past helps us understand the present,” but above all because a community’s civic identity is formed through an awareness of its own history.
This book is the product of a collaboration between experienced historians and younger researchers trained at the University of San Marino’s Advanced School of Historical Studies. The exchange between different generations and sensibilities has proved especially valuable in bringing into focus the many dimensions of so distinctive a reality as the Republic of San Marino.
A textbook is usually the work of a single scholar. In this case, however, a different approach was chosen: the text was written by fifteen authors, whose diverse backgrounds and expertise made it possible to trace, across the centuries, a series of events that became ever more closely interconnected. Exploring them required forms of knowledge not always included among the historical disciplines in the strict sense.

In this respect, the editors embraced the principle expressed by one of the founding figures of modern historiography, Marc Bloch, who argued that “history does not admit self-sufficiency.”
Over the centuries, the Republic has preserved the same sense of pride its citizens displayed to the papal legate in Romagna, who climbed Mount Titano in 1294 and, when faced with their refusal to pay tribute, asked them what freedom meant (“Quid est libertas”). The people of San Marino replied that to be free meant to be subject to no one (“nemini teneri”). Over time, that tenacious and proud defense of their autonomy became a guiding thread that has run through and defined the history of the Sammarinese community down to the present day.

​ISBN 979-12-82090-0-94