Domagnano, the castello your bus drives straight through

If you’ve come up to San Marino on the Rimini bus, you’ve driven through Domagnano without noticing. The dual carriageway splits it down the middle, lined with car dealers and shops, and from the window it looks like somewhere to pass. Yet this castello has one of the country’s oddest stories, about a hoard of Gothic jewellery that ended up divided between London, Nuremberg and New York.

From blacksmiths to the dual carriageway

The castello council explains that the place was once called Omagnano and appears in records from 1253, though recent archaeological finds show people lived here in Roman times. The name probably comes from the «magnani», craftsmen who worked iron, which tells you what the first settlement did for a living.

Today it has 3,623 residents, according to the official statistics bulletin, across 6.62 km². The same page says 70% of the land is still farmed, with olive groves, vineyards and wheat, even if very few people now work it. The old wood-inlay craftsmen and potters sit alongside small factories at La Fiorina and the shops that have sprung up along the main road. For me it’s the castello where you can best see farming San Marino turning into the modern one.

Montelupo, the tower on the coat of arms

On top of Montelupo hill there was a Lombard fort that, in the government’s words, loomed menacingly over the valley. Only a few ruins survive, beside the little Torraccia church, and its image lives on in the castello’s coat of arms, with a wolf walking beneath the broken tower. Wikipedia adds that the Sammarinese took Domagnano in 1463 during the war against the Malatesta; the full story of those gains is in San Marino’s castelli.

Close by at La Torraccia is the airstrip for helicopters and microlights. It isn’t an airport, but it’s where Pope Leo XIV touched down on 22 August 2026. Wikipedia also mentions a Torraccia festival on the last weekend of August, with fireworks, run by a residents’ cooperative.

The treasure from Paderna

In 1892 and 1893 a set of 5th and 6th-century Gothic jewellery belonging to a noblewoman or princess came to light at Paderna. According to Wikipedia it includes two eagle-shaped brooches, earrings, necklace pieces, a ring, a hairpin and other ornaments. What strikes me is where it went. Most of it is in the British Museum and the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg, one piece is at the Met in New York, a brooch is in the Louvre Abu Dhabi and just one small stud stayed in San Marino.

Between 2004 and 2006 replicas were made using experimental archaeology techniques, and they’re now on show in the territorial archaeology section of the State Museum. If you’re in London, the British Museum pieces are the originals; in San Marino, I’d see the replicas before or after passing through Domagnano, because they give this castello a face.

Carnival and festivals

Locals are devoted to their festivals, above all carnival, with a parade of decorated floats through the streets that the council describes as a legacy of peasant culture. The official 2024 calendar also listed the Sagra del Cinghiale, a wild boar feast (7 and 8 June), the castello festival (27 to 30 June) and a New Year’s Eve party in the square. There’s no 2026 calendar, so check dates before travelling. The country’s full calendar is on my San Marino events page.

Getting there

It’s the easiest castello to reach without a car. Bonelli’s shuttle from Rimini station stops at Domagnano Croce about 43 minutes after leaving, with a €6 single. Inside the country, AASS lines 4, 6 and 47 link it with the capital, Borgo Maggiore, Serravalle and Dogana; line 6 runs up to La Torraccia. Timetables and fares are in Rimini to San Marino.