SAN MARINO: ART AND LITERATURE

The arts have long been supported by the government and enjoyed by the people of San Marino. Their artistic styles were often intertwined with those of Italian art movements.

Traditional arts include a number of crafts like ceramics and stone carving. Some of these arts art still flourishing mainly for the tourists (hey, tourists are good for something). 

Like Italy, sculptures are also an important part of art. And in many cities, their public spaces and buildings are decorated with sculptures depicting San Marino’s history, important people, and their culture.

Although painting has been popular since the Renaissance, it’s still a prevalent art form. There have been several art shows and awards handed out throughout the years. Some of these shows have drawn many visitors to San Marino to witness the best of the art world. However, it’s hard to find a list of painters or sculptors from San Marino. I either kept coming up with San Marino, California or different Italian artists.

Much of Sammarinese literature is written in Italian. One of the challenges small countries face is that many aspects of their culture gets swallowed up by the larger countries around them. For the most part, the same is true for San Marino in regards to its proximity to Italian culture.

Eugenio Montale -- my honorary author

And I’m also finding out that even though San Marino has held arts and literary competitions in the past, the entrants are not necessarily from San Marino. For example, they held the San Marino Literary Prize in 1950 (the only year for this prize apparently), and the honored recipient was Italian poet Eugenio Montale. He was certainly qualified (he went on to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature 25 years later), but he wasn’t from San Marino. But I’m surprised there aren’t many authors or artists specifically mentioned as being from San Marino.

But alas, I did find a few. Kind of. Giovanni Battista Belluzzi was an architect and engineer who designed many fortifications during the mid-1500s. He also authored a book on military architecture (I didn’t even know there was such as thing).

Another author was Pietro Franciosi. He grew up in San Marino but wrote at the University of Bologna where one of his teachers was Giosuè Carducci (an Italian writer who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1906 – the seventh recipient ever!). He was a history and geography teacher until he was later ousted for incorporating his socialist and anti-fascist views into his teaching. 

But I’m glad I’m not the only one who struggled with finding Sammarinese authors. Another blogger whose blog I’ve read several times (especially if it’s a challenging country – I let her do the leg work for them) had the same struggles. She did find one to mention that you can read about here.

Up next: music and dance