NATIONAL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY OF TURIN – ITALY
“Vita Sanctorum Marini et Leonis” also known as Vita Sancti Marini.
It is the story of the birth of the oldest Republic in the World.
It is the story of a migrant who finds his home away from home.
It is the story of an inseparable friendship between two people who will become Saints, Saint Marino and Saint Leo.
It is the story of a community that forms and grows, establishing fundamental bonds of solidarity and freedom, still present in the descendants of the founders.
It is the oldest manuscript found on the life of Saint Marino.
Included in the UNESCO Memory of the World Register.
The original, recently rediscovered, is preserved at the National University Library of Turin – Manuscript F III. 16.
The work is an exact reproduction of the original, in a limited edition. A copy is exhibited at EXPO OSAKA 2025 at the stand of the State of San Marino.
$899.00
100 in stock
“At the time of the emperors Diocletian and Maximian, when the fury of persecution was devastating the terrestrial globe…” Thus begins the manuscript, reminding us how the theme of persecuted populations, unfortunately always current, has traversed all of human history.
Two stonemason friends, Marino and Leone, depart from Dalmatia to reach Rimini and work on the surrounding hills to extract stone. Saint Marino lived for a long time in Rimini, where, as a Catholic Christian, he preached his faith, converting numerous pagans.
His success drew upon him the force of Evil, which manifested itself in a woman who came from Dalmatia and declared herself his wife. The accusation, a persecutory expedient to imprison him, forced him into exile.
He retreated to the slopes of Mount Titan, where he lived as a hermit for a year, constantly tormented by the Devil. He was then joined by the woman who claimed to be his wife, but after a period of fasting and prayer, marked on her forehead with the sign of the cross, she confessed to having invented everything, deceived by diabolical instigations.
The rest of the story is narrated in the manuscript and the accompanying commentary. We can anticipate that Saint Marino and Saint Leo are still close today: the Republic of San Marino and the city of San Leo, founded by them, are only nine kilometers apart as the crow flies.
The manuscript codex F. III. 16, in folios 182r-190v, contains the oldest existing testimony of the Latin document Vita Sanctorum Marini et Leonis, more briefly known as Vita Sancti Marini.
It is the narration of the material and spiritual journey that led the stonecutter Marino, between the end of the 3rd and the beginning of the 4th century AD, from the Dalmatian island of Arbe (today Rab, in Croatia) to the Roman city of Ariminum (Rimini), to then settle on Mount Titan, present-day San Marino.
The text, written in Latin attributable to the late imperial or early medieval period, goes beyond simple material, geographical, and travel references, narrating Marino’s individual and faith choice. He embraced and promoted principles of industriousness, solidarity, independence, and freedom, which constituted the foundations of a new community.
In the panorama of hagiographic works of early medieval narration, often collected in the so-called Passionals, the Vita Sanctorum Marini et Leonis stands out for two aspects: on one hand, for the articulation of the journey through different territories, at the time part of the Roman Empire; on the other, for contents that, beyond religious value, propose ideas of civil coexistence surprisingly advanced for the time, in line with social and political models codified only in later centuries.
The manuscript was written between the end of the 10th and the beginning of the 11th century by different hands, in Caroline minuscule. It comes from the monastery of San Colombano in Bobbio and its authenticity is attested by a note of possession present on folio 1r, in the upper margin. The note, written between 1456 and 1459 by Gregorio da Crema, is common to all Bobbio codices included in the 1461 inventory:
Liber Sancti Colombani de Bobio 121: Istud passionarium est monachorum congregationis Sanctae Iustinae de observantia ordinis Santi Benedicti residentium in monasterium Sancti Columbani de Bobio. Scriptum sub numero 121.
This manuscript defines, among other things, Freedom as a universal and fundamental value for Mankind, regardless of individual religious beliefs. It is a message that comes from distant centuries, when a monk from the monastery of Bobbio, around 900 AD, deemed it essential to pass it on to future generations. Today, after more than a thousand years, those who choose to purchase this work also make a symbolic gesture: carrying this message into the future, recognizing its importance for generations to come. It is an incorruptible testimony.
Note: Each work is created exclusively after purchase. During production, we are committed to updating the customer with photos and videos of the preparation stages of the purchased work.
This allows us to make your experience and the work you decide to purchase exclusive. For this reason, from the moment of purchase, the production time will be 14 working days. Subsequently, we will proceed to send the product via insured courier.
