Nice map titled Rimini et Saint-Marin, from wood engraving with fine detail and clear impression, nice hand coloring. Overall size is approx. 19.5 x 16 cm, image size is approx. 13 x 11 cm. From La Nouvelle Géographie universelle, la terre et les hommes, 19 vol. (1875-94), great work of Elisee Reclus. Cartographer is Charles Perron.

San Marino

small republic situated on the slopes of Mount Titano, on the  Adriatic side of central Italy between the Emilia-Romagna and Marche regions and  surrounded on all sides by the Republic of Italy. It is the smallest independent  state in Europe after Vatican City and Monaco and, until the independence of  Nauru (1968), the smallest republic in the world.

San Marino has an irregular rectangular form with a maximum length of 8 miles  (13 km), northeast to southwest. It is crossed by the Marano and Ausa (Aussa)  streams, which flow into the Adriatic Sea, and by the stream of San Marino,  which falls into the Marecchia River. The landscape is dominated by the huge,  central limestone mass of Mount Titano (2,424 feet [739 metres]); hills spread  out from it on the southwest, whereas the northeastern part gently slopes down  toward the Romagna plain and the Adriatic coast. The silhouette of Mount Titano,  with its three summits crowned by ancient triple fortifications, may be seen  from many miles away. In 2008 Mount Titano and the historic centre of San Marino  were designated a UNESCO World Heritage site.

The climate is mild and temperate, with maximum temperatures of 79 °F (26 °C) in  summer and 19 °F (−7 °C) in winter. Annual rainfall ranges between about 22  inches (560 mm) and 32 inches (800 mm). Vegetation is typical of the  Mediterranean zone, with variations due to elevation, and includes olive, pine,  oak, ash, poplar, fir, and elm, as well as many kinds of grasses and flowers.  Besides domestic and farmyard animals, moles, hedgehogs, foxes, badgers,  martens, weasels, and hares are found. Indigenous birds and birds of passage are  plentiful.

Although traces of human presence from both prehistoric and Roman times exist in  the territory, Mount Titano and its slopes are known to have been populated,  with certainty, only after the arrival of St. Marinus and his followers. San  Marino citizens, or Sammarinesi, make up more than four-fifths of the country's  population, with Italians composing most of the remainder. Thousands of  Sammarinesi reside abroad, principally in Italy, the United States, France, and  Argentina. Nearly nine-tenths of San Marino's citizens are Roman Catholics,  though there is no official religion. The official language is Italian. A widely  spoken dialect has been defined as Celto-Gallic, akin to the Piedmont and  Lombardy dialects as well as to that of Romagna.

Because centuries-long quarrying has exhausted Mount Titano's stone and ended  the craft that depended upon it, the territory is now without mineral resources.  All electrical power is transferred via electrical grid from Italy, San Marino's  main trading partner. The country's principal resources are industry, tourism,  commerce, agriculture, and crafts. Manufactures include electronics, paint,  cosmetics, ceramics, jewelry, and clothing. Ceramic and wrought-iron articles,  as well as modern and reproduction furniture, are among San Marino's traditional  craft products. Fine printing, particularly of postage stamps, is a consistent  source of revenues. Banking is a vital industry. In 2002 San Marino replaced the  Italian lira with the euro as its national currency.

Tourism is the sector of greatest expansion, and it makes a major contribution  to the inhabitants' income. Alongside traditional excursion tourism, there is  convention-type tourism, based on modern hotel facilities, as well as  residential tourism.

Agriculture, although no longer the principal economic resource in San Marino,  remains vital. Wheat, grapes, and barley are the chief crops; dairying and  livestock also are important. About three-fourths of the land is given to  permanent cultivation.

The capital, San Marino city, is set high on the western side of Mount Titano,  beneath the fortress crowning one of its summits, and is encircled by triple  walls. Borgo Maggiore, farther down the slope, was for centuries San Marino's  commercial centre, and Serravalle, beneath its castle of the Malatesta family,  is agricultural and industrial. Most of San Marino's landscape is agricultural  in character, but industrial concerns have intruded on the centuries-old forms  of agricultural life.

The San Marino constitution, originating from the Statutes of 1600, provides for  a parliamentary form of government. The Great and General Council (Parliament)  has 60 members, elected every five years by all adult citizens. It has  legislative and administrative powers and every six months nominates the two  captains regent (capitani reggenti), who hold office for that period and may not  be elected again until three years have elapsed. The Great and General Council  is headed by the captains regent, who are heads of state and of the  administration. The Congress of State, a council of ministers, is composed of 10  members, elected by the Great and General Council from among its members, and  constitutes the central organ of executive power. Each member has charge of a  ministerial department.

Social programs for the citizens of San Marino are extensive. The state attempts  to keep unemployment in check by seeking to provide employment for those who  cannot find work with private concerns. All citizens (who make social security  contributions) receive free, comprehensive, high-quality medical care and  assistance in sickness, accident, and old age, as well as family allowances. The  state aids home ownership through its buildings schemes. Education is free up to  age 14. The University of San Marino was founded in 1985. A public security  force of about 50 persons provides national defense.

A network of roads connects San Marino with the surrounding regions of Italy.  Motorcoach services connect San Marino city with Rimini, Italy, and, in summer,  directly with the Adriatic coast. The main airport serving San Marino is the  Federico Fellini International Airport in Rimini. There are no railroads, but  the capital is reached from Borgo Maggiore by means of a cable railway.

The Republic of San Marino traces its origin to the early 4th century CE when,  according to tradition, St. Marinus and a group of Christians settled there to  escape persecution. By the 12th century San Marino had developed into a commune  ruled by its own statutes and consuls. The commune was able to remain  independent despite encroachments by neighbouring bishops and lords, largely  because of its isolation and its mountain fortresses. Against the attacks of the  Malatesta family, who ruled the nearby seaport of Rimini, San Marino enjoyed the  protection of the rival family of Montefeltro, who ruled Urbino. By the middle  of the 15th century, it was a republic ruled by a Grand Council—60 men taken  from the Arengo, or Assembly of Families. Warding off serious attacks in the  16th century (including an occupation by Cesare Borgia), San Marino survived the  Renaissance as a relic of the self-governing Italian city-states. Rule by an  oligarchy and attempts to annex it to the Papal States in the 18th century  marked the decline of the republic.

When Napoleon invaded Italy, he respected the independence of the republic and  even offered to extend its territory (1797). The Congress of Vienna (1815), at  the end of the Napoleonic Wars, also recognized its independent status. During  the 19th-century movement for Italian unification, San Marino offered asylum to  revolutionaries, among them Giuseppe Garibaldi. After Italy became a national  state, a series of treaties (the first in 1862) confirmed San Marino's  independence.

Rimini

Latin Ariminum

town, Emilia-Romagna regione, northern Italy. The town is located along the  Riviera del Sole of the Adriatic Sea at the mouth of the Marecchia River, just  northeast of Mount Titano and the Republic of San Marino.

The Romans called it Ariminum, from Ariminus, the old name of the Marecchia,  and, according to the 1st-century-BC Greek historian Strabo, it originally  belonged to the Umbro-Etruscan civilization. The site was occupied in 268 BC by  the Romans, and a Latin colony was established there on the boundary of Aemilia  and Umbria. As the junction of the great Roman roads the Via Aemilia and the Via  Flaminia, it became a Roman municipium (community) and was later sacked by the  dictator Sulla. In AD 359 the town was host to the Council of Rimini, which  failed to resolve the Arian controversy over the divinity of Christ. Rimini  passed to the Byzantines and from them to the Goths, from whom it was recaptured  by the Byzantine general Narses, and then to the Lombards and Franks.

The town was long an object of papal-imperial rivalry, particularly after it  became an independent commune in the 12th century. The Guelf (papal) leader  Malatesta da Verucchio was made podestà (“mayor”) in 1239, but internal strife  prevailed until members of the Malatesta family were recognized as lords of the  town in 1334. It was in this period that Gianciotto (Malatesta) the Lame killed  his wife Francesca da Polenta and his brother Paolo, her secret lover; the  tragedy was immortalized in Dante's Inferno and in Silvio Pellico's Francesca da  Rimini.

The most renowned of the Malatesta lords was Sigismondo Pandolfo (1417–68), a  soldier and arts patron who was responsible for Rimini's 15th-century  fortifications and for its best-known monument, the Malatesta Temple, designed  to glorify his love for Isotta degli Atti. Sigismondo was accused of having  killed his first and second wives in order to marry Isotta. This suspicion and  his quarrels with other rulers and with the papacy led to Pope Pius II's  indictment of him in 1461. Sigismondo was compelled to submit and yielded most  of his territory to the pope, keeping only Rimini and a few lands. He was  succeeded by his illegitimate son Roberto, who got rid of the legitimate heirs  and later was reconciled with the pope, becoming the commander of the papal  army. Roberto's son Sigismondo failed to defend his lands against Cesare Borgia,  and Rimini passed to the Papal States in 1509. Except for brief French  domination during the Napoleonic Wars, the city remained under papal control  until it was annexed to the Kingdom of Italy in 1860.

In the 19th century Rimini expanded beyond its walls and became a beach resort,  a development accelerated by the establishment of seaside suburbs south of the  city after 1920. Despite heavy damage from Allied bombardment in World War II,  the city recovered. Its coastal resorts stretch for nearly 10 miles (16 km)  between Torre Pedrera and Miramare.

Roman remains in Rimini include the Arch of Augustus, erected in 27 BC and  completed in AD 22 by the emperor Tiberius; the bridge built by Augustus over  the river and also completed by Tiberius (AD 21); and the ruins of a Roman  amphitheatre. The Malatesta Temple, which was converted from the old Gothic  Church of San Francesco and designed by Leon Battista Alberti, is decorated with  exquisite reliefs of a frankly pagan character and with the intertwined initials  S and I (for Sigismondo and Isotta). Only ruins remain of the castle (1446) and  town walls that were built by Sigismondo Pandolfo. Other noteworthy buildings  include the restored Palazzo dell'Arengo (1204), the picture gallery, the civic  library, and several medieval and Renaissance churches.

Rimini is a road centre and important railway junction of lines to Brindisi,  Venice and Trieste, and Bologna and Turin. The town has sea links with Ancona,  Ravenna, Venice, and Trieste, and there is an airport at Miramare. The  hinterland produces cereals and fruit, and the town has processing factories and  railway repair shops. The main source of income, however, is tourism. The gently  sloping beaches backed by promenades and hotels attract tourists, as do Rimini's  international shows, sporting events, and concerts. Pop. (2006 est.) mun.,  135,682.