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JANUARY 2012
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HEMISPHERESMAGAZINE.COM
Nina was invited by a friend from board-
ing school, and used the opportunity to
network with Arab investors.
She is intelligent and charming, but is
quick to point out that being the prince’s
wife doesn’t make her royalty—not
that the Seborgan people recognize the
distinction. “It takes me an hour to get
across town,” she says. “People are always
stopping me, calling me ‘our princess.’”
She talks passionately about Seborgan
independence and her plans to build a
newplayground beside the central piazza.
She is eager to bring tourism to Seborga
while also preserving the town’s cultural
and aesthetic integrity. “We won’t build
anything taller than five stories,” she says.
“But we do want a new hotel and shops
and restaurants. And of course we’ll have
to run our own schools and collect taxes
and do everything a country does.”
A FEWWEEKS AFTER
Franco Ronchi
returned to Milan, he received word that
his request to become the consul for
Seborga had been denied. The decision
was made by Nina Menega o. It’s one of
her new duties, and she aims to be much
more discriminating about titles than
Giorgio I was. “So many people write to
me saying they want to be a consul or a
minister,” she says. “I tell them they must
come here if they’re serious. In the past,
some of our consuls haven’t really done
anything. Like the one in Indonesia.”
Though disappointed, Ronchi consoles
himself with the dreamof one day selling
his perfumes in New York City. And he
takes solace in a few encouraging words
fromArno e. “He toldme tobepatient and
wait for theposition,” Ronchi says. Thenhe
shrugs. “But if that is not successful, I will
try for another African country.”
JENNIFER MILLER
is a writer in Brooklyn, N.Y.
Her first novel,
The Year of the Gadfly
, is
due out in May.
MARCELLOMENEGATTO
doesn’t look
like a politician—or even a prince, really.
He is a hulking man, over 6 feet, with
thinning, curly gelled hair and a doughy
middle. He’s got a Euro-preppy aesthetic:
expensive distressed jeans and shoes with
severely pointed toes. He’s more Monaco
than medieval, and he stands out as he
strolls through Seborga.
One year into his reign, Menega o still
has an uneasy relationship with his title.
At a dinner in honor of SeborganNational
Day, he sat at a long table in the town
squarewhilewomen in Renaissance-style
velvet gowns served him plates of grilled
meat. He wore a sash in the Seborgan
colors of blue andwhite. He looked bored.
The next day he disappeared in themiddle
of an interview for this story, ducking out
to buy a pack of cigare es and failing to
return. When his wife called to ask where
hewas, he toldher he’d gone home. He said
he thought the interview was over. Not
even his wife bought that excuse.
Part of his ambivalence might owe to
the fact that not everyone in town is so
delightedwith the new leader. Certain fac-
tions have refused to abdicate allegiance to
Giorgio I. They call themselves the “White
Knights” and theyhold late-nightmeetings
at their headquarters (a bed and breakfast
outside town) to plan ways of sabotag-
ing the new regime. A er the knighting
ceremony, for instance, the prince and his
wife rode through town in a horse-drawn
carriage. Later, theWhiteKnights collected
the horse droppings and le them in a bag
outside the prince’s office.
This kind of behavior is precisely why
Menega o didn’t want to be prince in the
first place. Even thoughnotable Seborgans
askedhimto run for the position, he found
the competition nasty. “My opponents
were trying to find out everything bad I’d
done in the last 20 years!” he says.
Meanwhile, Nina Menega o, who has
a master’s degree in marketing and was
elected minister of foreign affairs, has
thrown herself into her new role with
abandon. She spends her days preparing
documents for the Hague and conversing
with foreignmedia. She runs the principal-
ity’s PR campaign and has partneredwith
an Italian fashion company tomake a line
calledPrincipato di Seborga. In a tiny shop
along one of Seborga’s narrow streets, you
can buy sneakers named for the prince:
The “Marcello Primo” comes in crocodile
and snake leather for 245 euros (about
$335). In the main piazza, tourists can buy
Seborgan-themedbags andperfumes, polo
shirts with the Seborgan crest and even
Seborgan license plates and passports.
(Arno e says he’s traveled abroad on such
a passport without difficulty.)
NinaMenega o’s English is impeccable
and, with her long brown hair and fash-
ionable outfits, she bears a resemblance
to the Duchess of Cambridge (née Kate
Middleton), whom she admires. “She’s so
down-to-earth,” Nina says. The highlight
of her job so far was a trip to England for
a polo match hosted by Queen Elizabeth.
HIS FOES INTHIS TINY PRINCIPALITY
HAVE BEEN FIERCE. “MYOPPONENTS,”
SAYS THE PRINCE, “WERE TRYING TO
FINDOUT EVERYTHING BAD I’DDONE
INTHE LAST 20 YEARS!”
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