Palazzo Pubblico: San Marino’s Government Palace
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.8
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- San Marino
- Primary era
- Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Modern
- Civilizations
- Unclassified
- Site type
- Civic
- Remains
- Palace
On this page12 sections
History
Palazzo Pubblico is the Government Palace of San Marino, standing in Piazza della Libertà in the capital on Monte Titano. Built between 1884 and 1894 in a severe neo-medieval style inspired by Italian communal palaces of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, it became the seat of the republic’s principal legislative, executive, and judicial institutions, as well as the setting for official state ceremonies.
From the communal palace to the present building
The present palace replaced the Domus Magna Comunis, an earlier communal government building constructed between 1380 and 1392. Although that structure underwent repeated restoration, it was demolished toward the end of the nineteenth century to make way for a new seat of government.
The Roman architect Francesco Azzurri designed Palazzo Pubblico. Construction began when its first stone was laid on 17 May 1884 and ended in 1894. Local laborers undertook the stonework under the direction of master builder Giuseppe Reffi, while artisans from outside San Marino produced the decoration, furnishings, and manufactured components.
The palace was formally inaugurated on 30 September 1894. The Italian poet and scholar Giosuè Carducci delivered the address, titled On Perpetual Liberty. The building’s civic importance later found another expression on San Marino’s first-series two-euro coins, which depicted Palazzo Pubblico between 2002 and 2016.
Institutional life and historical memory
Palazzo Pubblico remains the working center of San Marino’s state institutions. The two Captains Regent, who serve jointly as heads of state for six-month terms, use it for official functions and receive important guests and citizens there. The Grand and General Council, San Marino’s legislative assembly, meets in the palace, while the Council of XII serves as the state’s highest judicial body and the Congress of State functions as the government. Each year, on 1 April and 1 October, the newly elected Captains Regent are announced from the facade balcony.
The palace also preserves memories of episodes connected with San Marino’s liberty. A mural commemorates the occupation led by Cardinal Giulio Alberoni and the republic’s liberation on 5 February 1740. Because the liberation fell on the feast day of Saint Agatha, she thereafter became one of the republic’s patron saints. Pope Clement XII is likewise commemorated for his efforts on behalf of San Marino’s liberty.
Restoration in the twentieth century
After a century in which the building underwent limited alteration, concerns arose about its safety and functionality. A major restoration and refurbishment campaign directed by the architect Gae Aulenti was completed on 30 September 1996. The intervention preserved Palazzo Pubblico as both a functioning institutional building and a setting in which the republic’s political history is presented through architecture, art, and ceremony.
Remains
Facade and exterior
Palazzo Pubblico is built of sandstone. Its principal facade is organized around a portico supported by three pointed arches, with three large openings, three upper windows, and a clock tower. The main body and tower carry Guelph battlements, square-profile crenellations associated with the Guelph political faction, set above corbels. Coats of arms decorate the facade, including those of Serravalle, Fiorentino, Faetano, and Montegiardino, the four municipal divisions incorporated into the Republic in 1463.
A bronze statue of Saint Marino by Giulio Tadolini stands on the right side of the facade. The clock tower bears a mosaic triptych, a work divided into three panels, representing Saints Leo, Agatha, and Marino. Three large entrance doors open beneath the portico, where a marble bust of Francesco Azzurri by Tadolini also stands.
Entrance and ceremonial spaces
The entrance atrium contains a broad stone staircase leading to the balcony. Stone-faced walls rise beneath a ceiling of polychrome wooden framing and a decorative frieze. The Republic’s coat of arms occupies the left side, while a bronze bust of Giosuè Carducci by Tullo Golfarelli stands on the right. A painted frieze above displays the coats of arms of figures and states that showed friendship toward San Marino over the centuries.
Doors at the rear of the atrium lead to rooms where the Captains Regent receive important guests and citizens. Other doors connect with offices and with a gallery from which citizens can observe parliamentary proceedings. The ceremonial staircase is lined with plaques commemorating Sammarinese and foreign figures, including Giuseppe Mazzini, and displays two sixteenth-century crossbows. A bronze head of Abraham Lincoln recalls San Marino’s decision to grant him honorary citizenship in 1861 and his expression of sympathy for the republic in a letter to the Captains Regent that year.
Upper interiors and civic decoration
Intermediate floor
The intermediate floor overlooks the atrium and contains a small tempera mural, a painting made with pigment bound in a medium such as egg. It portrays the end of the Alberoni occupation. Alberoni appears as a large tree, while Saint Agatha takes the form of a star whose beam of light cuts through one of its branches. Monte Titano and San Marino’s three fortresses appear in the scene, together with an inscription meaning “Gone, fled, departed.” A marble bust of Pope Clement XII stands beside the mural, and a door leads to rooms used as a press room.
Vestibule and Council of XII chamber
The vestibule lies between the two entrances to the chamber of the Grand and General Council. It contains a ceramic triptych of San Marino’s three patron saints, Saint Marino, Saint Quirinus, and Saint Agatha. The work was originally installed on the clock tower, but exposure to the weather damaged it, and it was moved into the palace in 1922. The small chamber of the Council of XII contains the painting San Marino Blessing the City.
Grand and General Council chamber
The chamber of the Grand and General Council is arranged around sixty councillors’ seats designed by Gae Aulenti. Its principal painting is Emilio Retrosi’s large 1894 tempera, The Apparition of Saint Marino to the People. The scene shows Saint Marino on the first slopes of Monte Titano presenting the Sammarinese with an ideal of liberty and independence. Two Captains Regent appear to his right, including Pietro Tonnini, while the people stand to his left with the banners of their guilds. The infant Sady Serafini is also represented; he later died on the Carso after volunteering for the Italian Army during the First World War. Additional decoration was produced by the Sienese painters Pietro Lolli, Giuseppe Rossi, and Carlo Merlini.
Hall of the Scrutiny
The Hall of the Scrutiny is used every six months to count the ballots cast for the appointment of the Captains Regent. Two seventeenth-century paintings decorate the room, depicting John the Baptist and Saint Marino as a stonecutter.
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