Republic of Ragusa

The Republic of Ragusa was an aristocratic maritime republic centered on the city of Dubrovnik (Ragusa in Italian and Latin; Raguxa in Venetian) in South Dalmatia (today in southernmost Croatia) in Southern Europe. It that carried that name from 1358 until 1808, reaching its commercial peak in the 15th and the 16th centuries. The republic was conquered by Napoleon's French Empire in 1806 and formally annexed by the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy in 1808. By then it had a population of about 30,000 people, of whom 5,000 lived within the city walls. Its motto was "Non bene pro toto libertas venditur auro", a Latin phrase which can be translated as "Liberty is not well sold for all the gold".