Anniversary Of The Arengo 2023: Date, History, Facts about San Marino

San Marino celebrates the Anniversary of the Arengo every year on March 25. It is a national holiday commemorating the precise date in 1906 when citizens voted to work toward becoming a democratic nation. Instead of being ruled by patriarchs, the Arengo of 1906 spawned a parliament elected directly by the people. The Arengo was the name of the assembly that ruled San Marino from the fifth century B.C. to 1243, as well as the popular councils that governed political life in the free “comuni” of Northern Italy during the same time period.

The background of Anniversary Of The Arengo

The smallest republic in the world and the earliest remaining sovereign state in Europe is San Marino. It was founded at the start of the fourth century and took a distinct approach to government than the surrounding nations and city-states. From the fifth century to the middle of the thirteenth century, rather than a monarchy, San Marino was governed by an assembly of the leaders of the state’s most prominent families. The Arengo was the collective appellation of these founding great families. The Arengo lacked a leader and a fixed meeting location.

By 1243, the citizens of San Marino had grown tired of family feuds, and the Pope had established a newly elected assembly, the Grand and General Council, as San Marino’s highest authority, unofficially ending the Arengo. Instead of being elected periodically, council members were appointed for life, creating an oligarchy in which power was vested in a small number of unaccountable individuals.

Since the 17th century, the Grand and General Council has increasingly been a government of few, with political authority concentrated in the hands of wealthy landowners. In 1906, the Sammarinese Socialist Party convened an arengo to debate whether the co-option system of councilors for life should be maintained or whether council sizes should be proportional to the populations of the communities they were to represent.

The Sammarinese Fascist Party was founded in 1922 in opposition to socialist reforms. They ruled until the conclusion of World War II, when a socialist-communist coalition government was formed.