d
his work, retired to this solitary mountain, as finding it very proper
for the life of a hermit, which he led in the greatest rigors and
austerities of religion. He had not been long here before he wrought a
reputed miracle, which, joined with his extraordinary sanctity, gained
him so great an esteem, that the princess of the country made him a
present of the mountain, to dispose of at his own discretion. His
reputation quickly peopled it, and gave rise to the republic which calls
itself after his name.

So that the commonwealth of Marino may boast, at least, of a nobler
original than that of Rome, the one having been at first an asylum for
robbers and murderers, and the other a resort of persons eminent for
their piety and devotion. The best of their churches is dedicated to the
saint, and holds his ashes. His statue stands over the high altar, with
the figure of a mountain in its hands, crowned with three castles, which
is likewise the arms of the commonwealth. They attribute to his
protection the long duration of their state, and look on him as the
greatest saint next the blessed virgin. I saw in their statute-book a
law against such as speak disrespectfully of him, who are to be punished
in the same manner as those convicted of blasphemy.

This petty republic has now lasted thirteen hundred years,[25] while all
the other states of Italy have several times changed their masters and
forms of government. Their whole history is comprised in two purchases,
which they made of a neighboring prince, and in a war in which they
assisted the pope against a lord of Rimini. In the year 1100 they bought
a castle in the neighborhood, as they did another in the year 1170. The
papers of the conditions are preserved in their archives, where it is
very remarkable that the name of the agent for the commonwealth, of the
seller, of the notary, and the witnesses, are the same in both the
instruments, tho drawn up at seventy years' distance from each other.
Nor can it be any mistake in the date, because the popes' and emperors'
names, with the year of their respective reigns, are both punctually set
down. About two hundred and ninety years after this they assisted Pope
Pius the Second against one of the Malatestas, who was then, lord of
Rimini; and when they had helped to conquer him, received from the pope,
as a reward for their assistance, four little castles. This they
represent as the flourishing time of the commonwealth, when their