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HEMISPHERESMAGAZINE.COM
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JANUARY 2012
of pastel yellow, blue and gray. By the time
of the knighting he was sagging visibly,
soaked through, doing his best to main-
tain his composure in the blazing sun. As
to whether he was concerned about the
prince’s seeming lack of interest, Ronchi
smiled. “In Italy,” he said, “everything is
difficult but nothing is impossible.” It’s a
line he’d pickedup earlier froma Seborgan
baron, andhewoulduse it againand again
in the days ahead.
After the ceremony, Ronchi trailed
the procession—the prince, his wife and
the knights and ministers—across the
main piazza and down one of the narrow,
shaded streets toward a restaurant called
the Rabbit, where hewas to have his audi-
ence with the prince. It was postponed.
Ronchiwasphilosophical.Asareminder,
he repeated themantra, beforeadding stoi-
cally: “May destiny do its course.”
DRIVE45MILESEAST
fromthe French
border and up a tortuous road and you’ll
pass a large blue andwhite sign that reads,
“The Principality of Seborga.” From this
point, according to Seborga’s 300 or so
residents, you are no longer on Italian soil
but in a sovereign nation: a place with its
own government, including an elected
prince, ministers and a coterie of knights,
as well as ambassadors who reside in
Luxembourg, Germany, France and
Bahrain. You can walk down the town’s
cobblestone streets and feel that you’re on
the set of a Shakespeare play, or look out
windows onto a sweeping
viewof theMediterranean.
You can also try to dig up
a few rare
luigini
, the local
currency, to pay for your
espresso. (Stores in town
accept
luigini
alongside
the euro, but because one
luigino
equals 4.285 euros,
making change can be a
complicated procedure.)
Seborga traces its sov-
ereign origins to 954 A.D.,
when the Benedict ine
monks of Lerino gained full
control of the town after
building amonastery there.
In 1097, Seborga became a
protectorate of the Holy
Roman Empire and later,
in the 18th century, of the
kingdom of Sardinia.
Then, in 1861, most Ital-
ian states merged into the
new kingdom of Italy. A
PEOPLE’S “PRINCESS”
Clockwise from right,
Nina Menegatto, foreign
minister and wife of the
prince; the Church of San
Bernardo, in the center of
Seborga; the view of the
Mediterranean coast
p66-70_HEM0112_Seborga.indd 69
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