The weirdest country

So, on a trip to Rome a few years back, I was wandering down Via Condotti around the ritzy neighborhood around the Spanish Steps, and I happened upon this Grand Palazzo with it’s doors open, looking into a courtyard with a giant maltese cross embedded in the floor. At first, I thought it was the Embassy of Malta, but something about the plaque on the door of the building led me to doubt my initial conclusion: in English: “The Sovereign Military Order of Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and Malta”. That definitely didn’t sound like the current country of Malta, and what it was I had no idea, but it led me down an internet rabbit hole that is very nicely summed up by this video.

It’s a wonderful piece detailing the unusual status and history, and it does ask an interesting questions. There is historical precedent for sovereign entities under international law, what if the SMOM is just the first quasi-national “country” with no territory, but with diplomatic relations, and passports. What if geography is not the pre-requisite for nationhood that we thought it was. In a world where geography is less and less relevant, could the SMOM be a template for a post-geographic country?