On the death of Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, without legitimate male issue, in October, 1468, Pope Paul II. declared Rimini and his other fiefs to have reverted to the Holy See. In the spring of the following year the Pontiff proceeded, with the assistance of the Venetians, to enforce his claim, and threatened the Republicans of San Marino with his vengeance if they did not aid him and his allies in gaining possession of Rimini, which Roberto Malatesta, one of the illegitimate sons of Sigismondo Pandolfo, had seized by stratagem. By advice of their faithful friend Federigo, Count of Urbino, who was at the head of the opposite league, comprising the King of Naples, the Duke of Milan, and the Florentines, the San-Marinese forwarded the Papal mandate to Florence, and requested through their ambassador, one Ser Bartolomeo, the support of that Republic. Several letters appear to have been sent in answer to their applications, and the one communicated by MR. SYDNEY SMIRKE is characterised by Melchiarre Delfico (_Memorie storiche della Repubblica di San Marino._ Capolago, 1842, 8vo. p. 229.) as "Del tutto didattica e parenetica intorno alla liberta, di cui i Fiorentini facevano gran vanto, mentre erano quasi alla vigilia di perderla intieramente." San Marino was not attacked during the campaign, which terminated on the 30th of August of the same year (1469) with the battle of Vergiano, in which Alessandro Sforza, the commander of the Papal forces, was signally defeated by Federigo. San Marino has never, so far as I have been able to ascertain, undergone the calamity of a siege, and its inhabitants have uninterruptedly enjoyed the blessing of self-government from the foundation of the Republic in the third or fourth century to the present time, with the exception of the few months of 1503, during which the infamous Cesare Borgia forced them to accept a Podesta of his own nomination. Various causes have contributed to this lengthened independence; but it may be stated that, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the San Marinese owed it no less to their own patriotism, courage, prudence, and good faith, than to the disinterested protection of the Counts and Dukes of Urbino, whose history has been so ably written by Mr. Dennistoun, in his recently published memoirs of that chivalrous race. The privileges of the Republic were confirmed on the 12th of February, 1797, by Napoleon Buonaparte, who offered to enlarge its territory,--a boon which its citizens were wise enough to decline; thinking, perhaps, with Montesquieu, that-- "Il est de la nature d'une republique qu'elle n'ait qu'un petit territoire: sans cela, elle ne peut guere subsister."--_Esprit des Lois_, liv. viii. chap. 16. Your readers will find some notices of San {377} Marino in Addison's _Remarks on several Parts of Italy_; Aristotle's _Politics_, translated by Gillies, lib. ii. Appendix.