State that time forgot seeks prince. GSOH required

Fancy a job with a touch more respect than your present employment? How about becoming a prince? Could you cope with being called Sua Tremendita (Your Tremendousness)?

Well, the chance could be coming up, because the Prince of Seborga, a village in north Italy that has a claim on being the world's oldest microstate, has declared he will abdicate.

Lying on the Riviera between the Italian port of Genoa and the French border, the picturesque village of 300 souls does a thriving business on its assertion that it is a sovereign state and relic of the Holy Roman Empire.

Seborga issues passports, car number plates and stamps, has its own constitution, Government, Parliament and court, a distinctive blue-and-white flag and a rather posh coat of arms whose cross points to its religious past.

It mints its own coin, the luigino, which is worth $9 and circulates within the principality alongside the euro and is snapped by many of the 100,000 tourists who cross the border each year for a quick gawp.

But the village is heading into turbulent times, as Prince Giorgio I, Seborga's head of state for the last four decades and the architect of its prosperity, has had enough.

A 69-year-old former flower seller with a reputation for fruity language and a fondness for local wine, Giorgio Carbone was elected head of state by the villagers as a reward for his activism to "restore" Seborga's ancient claim of independence.

But His Tremendousness has fallen out with the village Government over plans to scrap a small garden next to a church as part of a traffic scheme.

"He's been saying he's a bit tired, and maybe this disagreement with the work has pushed him into the decision, said Mayor Franco Fogliarini.

"I hope he will retract his abdication, because he represents our identity, our history, for everyone like me who were born in this village."

If Prince Giorgio carries out his threat, anyone can apply to be his successor. Only villagers take part in the election, which takes part in a raised-hands vote in the main square.

Seborga's website traces the villages history back to Roman times, when it was called Sepulcri Burgum. In 954, counts from nearby Ventimiglia bequeathed the village and its 1200ha of land to Benedictine monks, who established their own state.

The monks sold Seborga to the King of Savoy and Sardinia in 1729, but the transaction was never recorded. As a result, Seborga is missing from all the records of the later acts that created Italy, including national unification in 1861 and the establishment of the Italian Republic in 1946.

Its claim to independence, never pressed legally, is not recognised abroad, is ignored by Rome and Seborga's population still pay Italian taxes and vote in national elections.

Seborga, pop. 300

Was once a Roman settlement called Sepulcri Burgum.

Bequeathed to Benedictine monks in 954, who established their own "state" of Seborga.

Sold to the King of Savoy and Sardinia in 1729 - the sale was never recorded.

Omitted from post-Napoleonic War nation-building in 1815.

There is no record of Seborga in the 1861 Italian Unification Act.