640 JF. Miller nexing Rimini to the Papal States. Availing themselves of the peace which then reigned in the Romagna, the Sammarinesi made,
- in 1491, a second revision of their statutes, forbidding any citizen,
•on pain of death, to invoke foreign aid, or to alienate his property to foreign potentates, ordering that traitors should be drawn to ex- ecution at the tail of an ass, and annulling the ancient exception which forbade war against the Church. It seems probable that the style of " Republic " had been adopted early in this century, as we find it used as far back as 1448, but Fattori places between 1491 and 1505 the institution of the "Council of Twelve," a body still extant, two-thirds of which are annually elected from the " Council ■of Sixty," and which possesses certain judicial functions. To the fifteenth century, too, belong several notable natives of this minia- ture state, such as Giovanni Bertholdi di Serravalle, the theologian, and commentator on Dante, whose work has been published at the expense of the present Pope. But the sixteenth century began badly for the Republicans. Caesar Borgia's career of conquest in the Romagna filled them with just alarm ; and after the fall of the duchy of Urbino at his hands, they sent envoys to Venice, offering to obey the republic of San Marco, rather than the cruel son of Pope Alexander VI., and begging the Venetian government to send them a commissioner. The Venetians declined the overtures of the sister republic, which for a few months in 1 503 was actually occupied by the officials of Caesar Borgia. At the first favorable moment, however, the Sam- marinesi rose and drove out their tyrants ; but the Republican vil- lage of Serravalle, which Caesar had released from its allegiance to San Marino, was not anxious to return to it. The Sammarinesi then joined in the Romagnole revolt against Caesar, and we find their commander, Giangi, writing to the Capitani Reggcnti for a flag, so that he might conquer under the banner of the republic. The death of Alexander VI. and the fall of the Borgia family saved the little state from further danger from that quarter. But a new neighbor appeared on the scene in the shape of the Venetian repub- lic, which had purchased Rimini from the Malatesti. Fortunately for San Marino, the new pope, Julius II., was uncle of Francesco Maria della Rovere, who, on the recent extinction of the house of Montefeltro, had become duke of Urbino, and was animated by friendly feelings for the republic of Monte Titano. Accordingly, the Sammarinesi turned to the Pope in their distress, and he wrote to them in 1 509, assuring them that he had " resolved to omit nothing that could be of service for their defence and safety." ' ' His letter is in the archives, and is given by Delfico, II. App.
