Captains Regent in San Marino. Six months in six months
April 1st – October 1st 2022
Six months in six months: from 2022 to 1243
HE Oscar Mina |
HE Paolo Rondelli |
Today the bells call once again the San Marino citizens to participate in the inauguration ceremony of the new Captains Regent, Oscar Mina And Paolo Rondelli. The new Captains receive full powers from their two predecessors, Francesco Mussoni And Giacomo Simonciniwho had received them in turn on 1 October 2021 from their two predecessors, Giancarlo Venturini And Marco Nicolini and these in turn on 1 April 2021 by their two predecessors Alessandro Cardelli And Mirko Dolcini and so back six months in six months since 1243, when we know it to be consuls Filippo da Sterpeto and Oddone Scarito.
Faced with the singular ceremonial of this day, the jurist Pietro Ellero, in the second half of the nineteenth century, did not hesitate to affirm that in San Marino the authority regential enjoys the prestigious of a cult. The outgoing Regents, according to a report of 1643, deliver to the new ones: Standard, and Seals of the Republic together with the keys of one and the other Fortress, of both doors, and first of all the Keys of the Ark, where the Bone of our Most Glorious Protector rest. S. Marino, and finally the whole Republic in the same state and form, which was delivered to them.
At least 1500 times the ceremony of the delivery of full powers was repeated on the Titan, identical, in substance, to this one today. At least 2500 different people took turns after the semester on the throne of power. A due a due. It has never happened that one tried to eliminate the other in order to occupy all the power and make Guaita a private castle of her. Here on the Titan no captain was ever a traitor, nor any captain or private person who ever tried to become a tyrant.
The specialists of history have so far not tried their hand at an explanation. The San Marino case is outside the box. It is difficult to understand even relatively recent events such as the Arengo of 1906, in which the choice was made to return to representative democracy as to municipal democracies rather than referring to the principles of bourgeois revolutions. It was enough to change a passage of the ancient Statute. Yes, because the Republic – another singularity – does not have a written constitution.
In ancient Rome the fundamental rules of the community were merged with bronze. In modern states it is customary to fix them with the ink of the special texts of the constitutional papers. Paper or metal are nothing but a material support from which they are then transfused into the minds of individuals.
Here, on this mountain, the individuals, generation after generation, behaved as if the fundamental rules were part of their DNA, were absorbed with their mother’s milk, entered directly into the minds by osmosis from the community.
How did the fundamental rules originate in the Titan community?
Matteo Valli writes that the Saint Marino when he was alive he held the habitats of the Titan as brothers, not as subjects. In short, he made himself equal among equals. Precisely to instill the principles of equality in the community. To educate for equality. And, on the verge of death, to crown his teaching and example of him, in bequeathing to the habitat of the Titan the Freedom from any external authority, to impose a bond on them: that they should use it and enjoy its fruits common. All together.
The habitat del Titano – continues Valli – carried out the will of the Saint by placing the community in the State of the Republicfor rendering heredity is public and common to all received by the Saint.
In the San Marino community both homini civilians and cottages without distinction and difference whatsoever, they have part in the government and administration of public affairs, because of all the heads of the Houses, both of them and of the othersa single Assembly is formed, Arengo, of which the government is the emanation.
The Arengo, which is the expression before the Freedom internal, starting from the second half of the sixteenth century, when the whole world of politics undergoes an involution in an absolutist sense, it will be replaced in its entirety by the Council which will begin to renew itself by co-option. By osmosis of the surrounding world, nobility will also make its appearance in the San Marino community. However, neither the suspension of the convening of the Arengo nor the presence of the nobility upset the original structural system of the community.
The power of government in San Marino never ends in the hands of a single person or in those of a group of nobles concerned only with perpetuating themselves, as happens everywhere else, even in places that are administered as a republic (Lucca, Genoa, Venice). The San Marino nobles, unlike elsewhere, are dedicated as well as to the government of the state, also to the exercise of the intellectual professions necessary for the community. Basically it is culture is the element that legitimizes the power of the San Marino nobility compared to the rest of the population. Nothing else. For the rest, even the nobles behave like the others, also under the strict supervision of the Saint.
The Santomarinesi to individual sam any nobles including – not only to carry out a project of ‘signing’, but also only to conceive it, keeping their consciences in check. Is there a more effective and safer way to enforce a norm to an individual, than to make him impose it from his own conscience?
Every San Marino citizen knows that even the thought of appropriating all the power is equivalent to a challenge, a challenge directly launched to the Saint. Too dangerous. According to a scholar from Feretrano, Orazio Olivieri, it is well known that when on the Titan a member of the community lets himself be taken by the greed for power, he has no escape. He sooner or later he pays the consequences. On this the Saint does not forgive, according to Olivieri.
One fact is certain: the benefits that come to the community from being free from external authorities have never ended up in the hands of just one. Since there is historical memory, that is, from 1243, power in the Titan community has always been in the hands of two people who after six months have passed it on to two other people and so until today. Today at the end of this chain that has spanned the centuries, we greet and celebrate the LLs. AND AND. Oscar Mina And Paolo Rondelli.
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