San Marino, your results please!

The first of this month’s country profiles is taking us to the tiny State of San Marino, in southern Europe. This country is one of only three landlocked countries in the world completely within the territory of another, in this case, Italy.

San Marines or Sammarinese are the smallest single country population that has a place on the Council of Europe, and whilst not actually being part of the EU, they retain the rights and privileges that Italy receives, including use of the Euro. The country is at the base of the Apennine mountains, and is achingly beautiful, from the pictures I have seen. Unfortunately, this is a bit of a desktop tour for me and I am living through the marvels of the interweb, but I’m thinking that next year I will definitely need to go.

I’m always willing to go somewhere new, especially if there’s shopping, cake and a souvenir pencil.

San Marino shares much culturally and politically with Italy, and they have had a strong relationship for hundreds of years. San Marino escaped absorption by the Italian State during past and modern unifications, and has mostly remained neutral in times of war.

Today marks the National day of San Marino, which is officially Republic Day, where they obtained independence from the Roman Empire in AD 301.

San Marino claims it is the world’s oldest extant sovereign state as well as the oldest constitutional republic.

It’s hard to imagine anything, anywhere being that stable and prosperous for so long isn’t it?

So, I’d like to wish a big warm happy Republic day to the people of San Marino. Tellingly, their celebrations will be courteous, religious based and not without some spice. I understand there is a religious procession in the morning to worship the relics of Saint Marinus, the patron Saint, followed by a huge concert, archery competition and big bingo event. Now, I’ve been to one of these bingo things, and I have to say, they can get a little crazy. Not sure I’d pair it with a shooting of arrows contest, but there you go. Spicy.

Whenever I think of San Marino, I usually think of the delicious dessertTorta tre Monti (Three towers tort) because that’s how I roll baby. Also its worth a mention that in the 10 years San Marino have been participating in the Eurovision Song Contest, they have made the final twice, in 2014 and again this year, with very decent entries. Its also worth noting that Valentina Monetta who has represented San Marino 4 times, is the woman with the most participations in the contest in history. Actually don’t you love that Crimson dress? I have colours Ruby Darling, Crimson Russet and Cherries that would all go super well with that.

Putting my Eurovision obsession aside and focusing back on the job at hand, I noted in my heady Euro-frenzy, that San Marino and Merino (ie. Wool) are such similar words and I wondered if there was any connection.

Well, there isn’t and I’m just being silly as usual. Merino sheep came originally from Spain. I’m going to do a blog post later this month all about the fleece I get for my yarns. In the mean time, you can read a little bit about this on my website pages here. So there we go. But it was worth a try and I learned something new, as I hope you did too. And now I want cake.

Three towers Torta, YUM! though it’s rather flat for a tower themed cake.

The Merino fleece I do source is spun in Italy, as is most high quality knitting yarn, with the Tuscany region being home to large international companies that spin and distribute knitting yarn from fleece sourced all over the world. The quality of the spun yarn is superb, and there are rarely if ever any knot joins within a skein.

But I digress again. One of the charming things about San Marino is the beautiful medieval and renaissance architecture in the Capital. One of the noted Sammarinese sons was Giovanni Battista Belluzzi, a renaissance architect born in San Marino on September 27, 1506. He was sent to Bologna at the age of 18 to study commerce in the Wool business and at the age of 20 he returned to San Marino to start his own wool business. Later in life he became an architect of considerable note, designing military fortifications for many key Italian cities, including Pisa and Florence.

Giovanni Battista Belluzzi of the magnificent beard.

I’m particularly chuffed learning this. There is no skill or profession that can’t benefit from an understanding of the ins and outs, the loop and thread, the knit and purl of the chosen woven. And look, he’s even on the 50 Euro coin. Fancy pants. And SUPER nice beard. (purrr)

Having started my own little Indie dyeing business it’s important to me to have inspiration and a story behind what it is that I’m doing. This week I have crafted a new colour that was inspired by my reading about hilltop towns in and around Italy, the Medieval and Renaissance arts and crafts traditions and most excitedly, the Madrigals of the period. One of the Leading Italian authors was Torquato Tasso (1544-1595) one of Italy’s most well known but difficult to get along with Renaissance poets.

Despite being a young handsome man, most likely homosexual, he suffered terrible mental illness, and was incarcerated for much of his life. He died just days before being proclaimed Italy’s King of Poets. Up until the 20th century he was widely read and well loved. You can read more about Torquato here and read his poetry here. He was often used as the librettist for the Madrigals of Montiverdi.

My yarn story is a new colour called Torquato in his memory. I have blended a complex mixture of browns, plum, pinks and salmons with a hint of the olive green of the hills of the Mediterranean. You can purchase Torquato here. I have DK, a little Aran, Sock and Alpaca. What I wanted to achieve with this colour was a more multi dimensional colourway, with a greater sparkle and depth of interest. I hope you enjoy it.

These colours are what spoke to me when reading Torquato’s story. Also, Autumn is around the corner, so earthy warm browns should be what we are thinking about. You can find some of my other browns by clicking on the links below.

Oh, And when in San Marino, or even anywhere in Italy, Vatican City, Roma, Napoli, Milano, Sicily or Sardinia, one should NEVER forget Sophia Loren. Here she is wearing brown and looking a scrumptious as ever.

Actually, I’m just chatting to my friend in Australia, Danielle, and I just wrote these words

“I’m writing a story about San Marino today. Did you know they have been a republic since AD 301? It’s their republic day. I’m excited. They celebrate with a big game of Bingo”

And I think they are a few of the best sentences I have ever written.

Thanks for reading,

x Eddie Knitster

Chapter 7. San Marino and Torquato Tasso

San Marino, your results please!