The Prince is dead, long live Seborga. Image: sweded.

Dearly Departed: Constitutionally elected prince of breakaway Italian principality Seborga, “His Tremendousness” Giorgio Carbone, aka Prince Giorgio I, 1936-2009.

Cause Of Death: Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Greatest Achievement: Defying Italy by restoring Seborga to independence, as well as installing himself as its ruler.

It is a dream of many to move to a quaint mountainside hamlet on the border of Italy and France and live out our lives growing flowers and helping ourselves to free ham and cheese from the local provedore.

Giorgio Carbone went one better. He convinced the population of the tiny principality of Seborga in northwestern Italy to secede from Rome, then got them to install him as their prince.

His story is irrevocably linked to the story of this micronation. The principality had been declared an independent state as far back as 954, being run by an Abbot who was dubbed Prince of the Holy Roman Empire in 1079. It was sold off to the Kingdom Of Sardinia (which included Sicily and part of France) in 1729. It was then repatriated to Italy after the Napoleonic war in 1815. But the people of this five-square-kilometre area have a long memory.

In the 1960s, as head of the local flower-growers co-op, the charismatic Carbone reminded his neighbours that Seborga should be independent. He was then elected prince in 1963 and began his benevolent rule. I don’t know how one sets up a constitutional monarchy, but he was elected with a vote of 304 to 4. Presumably those four moved down the mountain in disgust.

Prince Giorgio didn’t mess around. He whipped up a constitution and set up a cabinet and parliament. He minted the luigino, which featured his regal visage and is pegged at 1=US$6, making it the highest value currency in the world (if you could spend it outside Seborga, which you can’t). He plonked his face on stamps, commissioned a national anthem, assembled a standing army (consisting of one lieutenant) and set up his humble palace. Giorgio had grand dreams, even though the population of Seborga varied between 300 and 400 during his rule.

He then set about diplomatic relations. The New York Times obit catalogued his efforts. He called the Italian government “imbeciles” and declared that even Mussolini didn’t consider Seborga part of Italy during an interview with Toronto’s Globe And Mail.

The Prince did appropriate the gaudy garb of royalty, decorating himself with a sash and medallions and carrying a sword. He drove a flag-adorned Mercedes through the narrow streets, which was once impounded by Italian police for a time due to its illegal Seborgian plates. But he was a kindly ruler, not dipping into his nation’s coffers but earning a living from selling flowers to Germany and France.

A lover of idleness, he smoked up to 80 cigarettes a day (at one point passing a law to encourage the habit) and declared Seborga’s motto to be: Sub umbra sede (”Sit in the shade”). He actually died in late November but news of his passing took time to reach the outside world.

There is no succession plan. He told People magazine in 1993, “I don’t expect to marry and produce an heir, although I love all my female subjects equally.” Which means that Seborga will probably be returned to Italy (if it was ever really separated from Italy). But Prince Giorgio was lucky enough to see an independent Seborga in his lifetime, because his life was dedicated to an independent Seborga.

He will be missed.