Word: borgias
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...have recalled,* San Marino has 38 square miles of tourist-delighting quaintness and scenery, 14,500 inhabitants who love to give away honorary citizenship to rich Americans. Tradition claims it was founded by a hermit stonecutter named Marinus who gathered about him Christian slaves-the poor and oppressed. Cesare Borgia briefly conquered it in 1503, Cardinal Alberoni overran it for a year in 1739, but always, through centuries of war and political strife, with Italian acquiescence, it maintained its borders, governed itself wisely and well...
Guidobaldo, Duke of Urbino, escaped from Borgia's treachery with San Marinese help. Garibaldi saw an Austrian Army that was pursuing him halt at the Republic's frontiers. When the Fascist tide started rising in Italy, so many refugees were washed up on the mountain side that Italy threatened to take over San Marino. Instead, the Fascists tried for years to control its politics. Not until 1932 was there a pro-Fascist majority in the 60-man Grand Council. Not until Federico Gozi (whose family has run San Marino for years) and Salvatore Foschi were elected twin regents...
...family of Florence, became a clerk in its government. For 14 years he sorted ambassadors' reports, paid secret agents, inspected fortresses and accounts. Sometimes the Signory sent Machiavelli on diplomatic missions. At the Vatican he began his firsthand study of power politics under such masters as Pope Alexander Borgia and his alleged son Cesare. Cesare Borgia was Machiavelli's model for the Prince...
...teller promises his wife that someday he will be rich and famous; then his sensational adventure comes about apparently as an accident. The result is that the slightly bewildered spectator doesn't know whether to regard him as the epitome of respectability that he has always seemed, or a Borgia in disguise. This uncertainty does not add to the interest. There is an amusing uncertainty springing up in the third act, however, over whether the little man actually made the kill that he is so sure of, or whether his glory is to be snatched away from him by some...
...Great American Rudeness," i.e., the custom that a hostess serves herself first-at which Mrs. Post hurls a five-page jeremiad, denouncing it as a vulgar survival from the poisoning Borgia...