San Marino,History of the Republic of San Marino from its foundation until its admission to the UN,Freedom comes from Saint Marino

Freedom comes from Saint Marino Previous Next

“Nemini teneri”: freedom in the language of the middle ages.

This Saint is Marinus, a stone cutter from Dalmatia, who crossed the Adriatic together with his coreligionists and fellow workers at the time when Diocletion was emperor perhaps to escape persecution.

Here with his own hands he built a stone voited chapel, from the foundations right up to the sturdy stone tiled roof. A solid building everlasting like his faith, and nearby he hewed himself a bed out of the rock in the side of the mountain, an example of faith and work.

He died, so the story goes, on 3^rd September 301, bequeathing to the people, the mountain and the seed of those convictions later called freedom.

Around the votive chapel a community of simple poor men and women, believers in God till the stony earth below the mountain soil that gives back in return little more than the seed, and then only when broken up, softened and mixed with sweat.

Rivers and roads run faraway.

Cut off from the world these people get used to being self reliant. Ignored by others, they begin to get the absurd idea they are free from all obligations towards others:“Nemini teneri”.

Montefeltro is a battlefield for the armies of the Pope and Emperor. The great men of the time can find nothing better to do than fight it out among these mountains.