Perched on Mount Titano, between Marche and Romagna regions, central Italy, San Marino with its 64 km² is the smallest republic in the world. And also the oldest among the republics existing today all around the world. Founded, as tradition says, in the fourth century by Marino, a sculptor of tombstones fleeing religious persecution of Roman emperor Diocletian, in the ninth century the small town already established its independency and was recognized as an autonomous state. Emerged unscathed from the medieval conflicts between the dominions of the other cities and the papacy, the boundaries of the small state have remained unchanged for six centuries, case so rare that becomes, in the eyes of the world, a symbol of freedom and independence.
