San Marino-SMOM Oratory San Giovanni Battista

Joint issue. It was announced in October 2011, on the occasion of the visit that the Prince and Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, H.M.E. Fra' Matthew Festing made to the Most Excellent Captains Regent of the Republic of San Marino. A promise kept together with the common commitment to support humanitarian assistance and the defence of human rights. The two sheets, designed by the B&AR agency, depict the Oratory of San Giovanni Battista. Distinct in their formal wording, their design differs in the central image on the left, where the official buildings of the two institutions have been reproduced. In the sheet dedicated to the SMOM, the Palace of the Order of Malta, located in Via dei Condotti in Rome; in the San Marino sheet, the Public Palace, seat of the institutional bodies of the State of San Marino, located in Piazza della Libertà. In the lower and upper part of the sheet, the interior of the Oratory consists of a single nave with a vaulted ceiling, decorated with the white and gold stuccoes typical of the Baroque style. The first of the two €1.90 stamps depicts the exterior of the small church located in contrada Omerelli, whose façade features a rectangular portal with a stone lintel surmounted by a large window. At the top, there is a plaque framed by two finely worked volutes supporting slender pinnacles in which there is a dedication to Saint John the Baptist, patron of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. The second stamp depicts the interior of the Oratory, consisting of a single nave with a vaulted ceiling. In the apse is the high altar on which a painting of St. John the Baptist stands out, and on the red terracotta floor, in great prominence is the inlay representing the white cross of the Knights of Malta.