Fiorentino, three castles, an aviator and a bonfire

Fiorentino bills itself as the land of three castles, and it’s one of the few lower castelli where genuine medieval stonework is still visible. It also has two stories I’m very fond of, one about an aviator who landed here in 1913 and one about a bonfire that every 18 March outshines the patron saint’s own feast.

Three castles, two half standing

The castello council names them one by one. The ruins of Castellaccio and Pennarossa can still be seen. Pennarossa was cleared and made safe from the early 1960s and now shows its foundations and keep, plus the wall walks and a cistern hewn from the rock. Of the third, Torricella, there’s no trace. If I could choose only one spot in Fiorentino, I’d walk up to Pennarossa.

Wikipedia fills in the history. Fiorentino is first recorded in 1069, among properties given to St Peter Damian, and from the 13th to the 15th century it belonged to the Counts of Carpegna, so much so that one branch of the family took its name. It passed to the Malatesta in 1440, and in 1463 Federico da Montefeltro and the Sammarinese took it, a gain Pope Pius II confirmed in a bull of 27 June that year. The defences were then dismantled. What came next is in the history of San Marino.

The aviator of Monte Carlo

In 1913 the Trieste-born aviator Gianni Widmer made the first flight over San Marino. According to the council, his 50-horsepower Blériot climbed to 1,600 metres and landed on the plateau after eleven minutes. Wikipedia gives the date as 16 April and places the landing on the plateau of Monte Carlo, at 508 metres. A memorial stone by the sculptor Carlo Reffi, with an inscription by Pietro Franciosi, marks the spot, and the same encyclopaedia says it was only the second monument in the world raised to an aviator. It’s one of my favourite small facts about the country.

Garibaldi and the Vascone

In the garden of a farmhouse not far from the centre you can still find the Vascone. The council says Garibaldi and his men would have stopped here on the night of 30 July 1849 to drink and rest on their march towards Venice. It tells it in the conditional, and so shall I. Up in the capital, the same episode ends at the church of San Quirino, where he disbanded his legion the next day.

There’s older archaeology too. Tombs from the Roman Republican period were found in 1910, and the State Museum keeps a vase and several fragments from that find.

The Focheraccia and the market

The castello festival falls on the last Sunday of July, for St Bartholomew, patron of the village’s modern church. But the council says plainly that the fire festival, the Focheraccia on 18 March in honour of St Joseph, is even better known. In 2024, per the official calendar, the castello festival ran from 26 to 28 July. Since the 2026 list isn’t out, I’d check dates with the council. Everything else in the year is in San Marino’s events.

If you’re here on a Wednesday, there’s a fruit, veg and fish market in the morning, 07:00 to 13:00, next to the Due Archi restaurant. The council suggests using the car park behind the restaurant and arriving via the turn for San Giovanni sotto le Penne.

Getting there

Two AASS services reach it from the capital. Line 1 starts at car park P9, crosses Murata and stops here on the way to Chiesanuova, while the circular lines 3D and 3S from P2 link it with Faetano and Montegiardino. All run on weekdays; other times, book the SMUVI. By car it’s the nearest castello to the capital on the southern side, and it’s all in getting around San Marino.