feu_647283 - SAN MARINO 2 Euro 500e ANNIVERSAIRE DE LA MORT DE CHRISTOPHE COLOMB 2006 Rome

SAN MARINO

(XIIIe- nos jours)

The small republic of San Marino, south of Rimini, is free from the thirteenth century. In the fifteenth century, it gives a Grand Council of sixty members recruited from the nobility and the bourgeoisie. In the nineteenth century it was a stronghold for revolutionaries and it is placed under the protection of the new Italian kingdom in 1862, which respects its independence. The members of the Grand Council are elected for four years by universal suffrage (introduced in 1909), two of them exercise executive power as the Captains Regent for six months.