State and private
The museum offering of the Republic divides into two distinct blocks. On one side the State Museums circuit, coordinated by the Cultural Institutes, which brings together six venues of historical and artistic value concentrated between the City of San Marino and its surroundings. On the other a network of private initiatives, born in the decades following the tourist boom of the Sixties, which has given rise to seven realities with sometimes very different angles.
The State Museum remains the reference point for Sammarinese archaeology, from the Neolithic period to the early Middle Ages. The St. Francis Art Gallery preserves sacred art from the fourteenth century to the twentieth. The San Marino National Gallery takes root in the International Art Biennials launched in 1956. The Museum of Ancient Weapons occupies the two floors of the Second Tower.
On the private side the range is wider. From the Wax Museum, which presents forty historical scenes with one hundred figures, to the Museum of Curiosities, the Torture Museum with over a hundred instruments from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, the Museum of Vampires and Werewolves, up to the more recent Titanus Museum, an immersive route with virtual reality and holograms on the origins of the Republic.
«Much of the culture of the world's oldest Republic resides in its museums: a rare density for a territory of 61.19 km².»
Inside and outside the walls
Eleven of the thirteen museums are located inside or a short walk from the walls of the City of San Marino: concentrated between Piazza della Libertà, the Garden of the Liburni, Via Basilicius, Contrada della Pieve and the former Monastery of St. Clare. Only two are exceptions and require a brief move: the Museum of Natural History, hosted in the Castello di Borgo Maggiore a hundred and fifty metres from the valley station of the cableway, and the Museum of Rural Culture, set up in the seventeenth-century Casa di Fabrica in Montecchio, in the territory of the Castello di Domagnano.
The thirteen museums in summary
| Museum | Type | Venue | Distinctive feature |
|---|---|---|---|
| State Museum | State | Piazzetta del Titano, 1 | Almost 5,000 pieces from the Neolithic to the twentieth century, including the votive bronzes of the Tanaccia and the Domagnano Treasure. |
| St. Francis Art Gallery | State | Via Basilicius | Painting from the 14th to the 16th century, with works by Guercino, Gerolamo Marchesi and Niccolò di Liberatore; annexed to the St. Francis Church. |
| San Marino National Gallery | State | Volunteers' Loggias, Garden of the Liburni | Roots in the International Art Biennials launched in 1956 with the participation of Renato Guttuso. |
| Museum of Ancient Weapons | State | Second Tower (Cesta), 755 m | European weapons and armour from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century, at the highest point of the Titano. |
| Museum of the Emigrant | State | Monastery of St. Clare | Photographs, documents and memorabilia of Sammarinese emigrants between the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. |
| Museum of Natural History | State | Castello di Borgo Maggiore | Sammarinese Naturalistic Centre, established in 1997. 150 metres from the valley station of the cableway. |
| Museum of Rural Culture | Public | Casa di Fabrica, Montecchio (Domagnano) | Manor house attested in the land registers since 1770, restored to tell the rural Sammarinese economy. |
| Wax Museum | Private | City of San Marino | Forty historical scenes with a hundred characters from Sammarinese history, the Italian Risorgimento and melodrama. |
| Museum of Curiosities | Private | City of San Marino, 600 m² | Over a hundred unusual objects: cup for the moustachioed, flea trap, Venetian high-tide pattens. |
| Torture Museum | Private | City of San Marino | More than a hundred original instruments from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century on the theme of coercion techniques and capital punishment. |
| Museum of Vampires and Werewolves | Private | City of San Marino | Creatures of the night, werewolves and vampires between mythology, ethnography and literary imagination. |
| Titanus Museum | Private | City of San Marino | Immersive multimedia route with virtual reality, 3D maps and holograms on the origins of San Marino. |
| Museum of Modern Weapons | Permanently closed | Contrada della Pieve, 2 | Held 2,000 firearms from the First and Second World Wars. Not open to visitors. |
Updated addresses and contacts: Cultural Institutes website museidistato.sm. Hours and rates vary and must be verified before the visit.
Suggested route
In a full day it is realistic to see four or five museums, provided they are concentrated in the historic centre. A short itinerary departs from Piazzetta del Titano with the State Museum, continues towards Via Basilicius for the St. Francis Art Gallery, climbs to the Second Tower for the Museum of Ancient Weapons, descends to the Volunteers' Loggias for the National Gallery and closes at the Monastery of St. Clare with the Museum of the Emigrant.
For a visit with children or teenagers, the Museum of Curiosities, the Wax Museum and the Titanus Museum are generally more effective than archaeological routes. Those with half an extra day available can reach the Museum of Natural History in Borgo Maggiore by descending in the cableway and the Museum of Rural Culture in Montecchio with a brief drive.