San Marino

san ma-re'no, the smallest republic in the world. It lies entirely within Italian territory on a spur of the Apennines, overlooking the Adriatic Sea. Area, thirty-eight square miles; population, 11,002. The inhabitants are engaged chiefly in raising cattle, pressing wine, and quarrying stone. The capital, a city of the same name, has a population of about 2,000 people. It is situated on a crag which is surrounded by a strongly fortified wall. The principal manufacture is silk. The government of the tiny republic is administered by a council of sixty members elected from the ranks of noble citizens and peasants. For so small a commonwealth, the government buildings are surprisingly massive and costly.

Italy has been fertile in republics. In the turmoil of the Middle Ages there arose a host of free municipalities, turbulent, quarrelsome, but, on the whole, self-governing. Some of these became very rich and powerful-Venice and Genoa in particular. The most of them gradually lost their liberties, and either became despotisms, like Florence, or were merged in some greater power. Venice and Genoa survived until the end of the eighteenth century. One of this medieval cluster still exists-the independent republic of San Marino. This little town of 8,000 people is an odd medieval petrifaction in the midst of our nineteenth century. Perched amid the Apennines, it has kept its freedom through all the changes which have swept over the peninsula. It was not overthrown in the past, because nobody particularly cared to attack it. It is preserved now partly because of the respect which modern and liberal Italy has for free institutions, and partly because the Italians are rather proud of its antiquity. They regard it as an interesting freak. It is bound to Italy by a treaty of friendship made in 1872.--H. P. Judson, Europe in the Nineteenth Century.