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 636 W. Miller " Republic " was afterwards substituted. Such was the constitution of San Marino, when the conflict between Guelphs and GhibeUines devastated Italy in the thirteenth century. That the tiny republic should have escaped annexation by some of its neighbors seems almost miraculous, for it had numerous dangers to encounter from one or the other of them. Its first risk was from the bishops of Montefeltro, its spiritual chiefs, one of whom, Ugolino by name, by inducing the Sam- marinesi to espouse with him the Ghibelline cause, exposed them to the terrors of a papal interdict, which lay heavily upon their small state from 1247 to 1249, when they were released from it at Perugia. With the object of restoring peace to the rival factions in Romagna, Philip, archbishop of Ravenna, summoned a peace con- gress to the castle of San Marino in 1252, which however had no better result than an armistice for twenty days.^ Ugolino, not content with his spiritual authority over the Re- publicans, clearly aimed at making himself master of a position so valuable as the castle of San Marino in those disturbed times. Thus, we find him participating in the purchase of some property which the Sammarinesi were anxious to acquire, in order to remove certain tolls levied by its owners upon all who visited an annual fair held in the neighborhood. His immediate successor followed his example in a similar transaction, and in 1278 expressed the "wish " that the Sammarinesi should alter a section in one of their statutes — a " wish " which they executed.' In a document of the previous year we find that the bishop had a residence in the strongest part of the city, and it was at San Marino that the famous Count Guido di Montefeltro, head of the GhibeUines in the Romagna, collected his partisans for an attempt on Rimini, at the invitation of a certain Messer Parcitade, chief of the same faction in that city. We are told that Parcitade, defeated by the Guelphs under Malatesta of Ver- rucchio, fled to San Marino, where Guido greeted him with the sar- castic pun : Ben vcnga, Messer Perdecittadi (" Welcome, Mr. Lose- cities "). But that the state was not politically dependent upon the bishopric of Montefeltro is proved by two declarations of indepen- dence in the last decade of this thirteenth century. The former of them, dated 129 1, arose out of a claim by the papal vicar of that district, who ordered the Sammarinesi to contribute towards the expenses of his office. The Sammarinesi refused, and the matter was submitted to the decision of a certain Palamede, judge at ' See the original document in Delfico, II. App. •^De Voluntale Venerabilis Patris Domini Johannu. . . Episcopi Ferctrani,—z-a- other allusion to statutes prior to 1295. Delfico, II. App.