The San Marino Torture Museum, without the gloss

There’s a certain irony in a country with a Piazza della Libertà hosting two private museums full of torture instruments. The one devoted entirely to the subject, with its own website, is the Museo della Tortura. Below is what you’ll find inside, its opening pattern and why it isn’t for everyone.

What exactly it is

It’s a private museum run by the company Museum srl, not part of the State Museums. It sits at Contrada San Francesco 2, in the part of the old town near Porta San Francesco. Its website describes an exhibition of more than 100 original instruments made to inflict pain and death, with the story of each punishment alongside.

One clarification that saves confusion. Some guides placed it at another address, but the one the museum itself publishes is this, and that’s the one I’d use. The same company also runs the vampire and werewolf museum on Contrada del Collegio, which you’ll find on my page about San Marino’s quirky museums.

What will you see?

The collection on the website mixes torture, execution and public humiliation. There’s the oral pear, the saw, the flail, the thumbscrews, the cage, the stretching rack, the servant’s sandals and the garrotte, in its Spanish and Catalan forms. Each piece comes with an explanation of how, when and against whom it was used.

More than the most brutal instruments, what interests me are the ones that reveal the society that invented them. The idler’s necklace, for instance, was hung on card or dice players and unlicensed smokers so they could be paraded through the streets. It killed nobody, but it tells you exactly what counted as a crime. The same goes for the cages, which until the late 18th century hung from palaces, walls and crossroads as a warning to all.

Hours and price

Its website gives long hours, ten in the morning to seven in the evening all week, cut back in winter, and that’s worth noting. In November and January it opens only Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and in December every day, always 10:00 to 19:00. If your trip falls on a weekday in November or January, you’ll find it closed. The calmer months for the trip as a whole are on my best time to visit San Marino page.

Price is the weak spot. Neither its website nor its sister museum’s publishes rates, so you ask at the door or ring +378 0549 991215. Nor is it on the State Museums pass, which is a separate €11 ticket.

Is it worth it?

That depends on who you are, and I have a clear view here. If the history of justice and punishment interests you, and you don’t mind reading in detail how each device worked, it’s one of the more substantial private museums in the centre. These are original objects, not fairground replicas, and the text in each case explains a fair bit.

With small children, I wouldn’t go in. The website sets no minimum age, but what it describes isn’t for them. With teenagers I’d decide case by case. With a single afternoon on Titano, the public sites come first for me. For the same time, the Cesta tower and its Armoury shows you around 700 real pieces, is on the pass and takes you to the highest point of Mount Titano as well. Better options for a family day are in my guide to San Marino with children.

There’s a middle way. The Wax Museum, open since 1966, has a section on torture instruments within a route of wax figures about San Marino’s history. It’s less intense and more varied, and I weigh it against every other option in my ranking of San Marino’s museums.

Fitting it into your walk

Contrada San Francesco is close to the San Francesco Art Gallery, so you can do both back to back. Since this museum closes at 19:00 and the State Museums shut at 16:50 in winter, my order is the obvious one. First whatever’s on the pass while it’s open, then this one late in the afternoon.

What I can’t tell you is how long the visit takes, because the website doesn’t say, or whether there’s a combined discount with the vampire museum. I’d ask on the way in.