Since 2 June 1946, the territory of Seborga has been counted among the municipalities of the Italian Republic and is administered by its Mayor elected from among the citizens and residents known as ‘seborghini’.
Some of these, headed by floriculturist Giorgio Carbone, in order to re-establish independence in Seborga, improperly elected their own prince of Seborga, named Giorgio I, in the 1980s.
This vote was arranged in the absence of detailed historical-legal knowledge on the part of Carbone and his supporters.
Upon the death of Giorgio Carbone, the citizens of the village, called Seborghini, elected the Swiss entrepreneur Marcello Menegatto, who was succeeded following his resignation by his ex-wife Nina Dobler.
These elections have no historical, legal or religious basis, and are therefore presumed by the Italian authorities to be of a goliardic and purely folkloric nature.
It should be noted that no country of the International Community officially recognises the principality created by Giorgio Carbone. In fact, this initiative has brought attention back to the small Ligurian village, which has become a destination for many tourists.
In order to shed light on the many and extravagant ideas of reconstituting a principality in Seborga, without any religious prerogative to confirm its title, nor historical and legal foundations, it was deemed appropriate to produce a historical-legal report, supported by official sources, texts and on-line publications.
We would like to thank the late Giorgio Carbone, because he was a source of inspiration for the studies written by the historian-theologian Gianluca de Lucia.
On 29 September 2019, it was decided to restore the ancient Benedictine matrix organisation in Seborga through the establishment of the Monastic Order of Seborga, a primary, secondary and tertiary religious congregation, incardinated to the Monegasque religious body, called the Polish National Catholic Church in Monaco, together with other Orthodox ecclesiastical jurisdiction, in full ecumenical spirit, in order to revive the Principality of Sabourg and its two Priories.
On 28 December 2019, the Commendatory Abbot of the Monastic Order, His Most Reverend Highness Monsignor Giovanni Luca, born Gianluca de Lucia, was crowned Prince-Abbot in Seborga.
This epoch-making event had as its primary objective that of having the first Monastic State of Humanity, today without territorial possession, recognised in international institutional fora, officially claiming Autonomy within the Italian Republic to the Head of the Italian Government, in order to favour an economic and social development of the territories of the Principality of Sabourg.