Campione d'Italia is a 2.68-square-kilometer piece of Italy entirely surrounded by the Swiss canton of Ticino on the shores of Lake Lugano. Italian soil is less than a kilometer away across the water, but reaching the nearest Italian town means a 14-kilometer drive through Switzerland. This episode explains how a 777 AD bequest to the Archbishopric of Milan, later held by the Abbey of Sant'Ambrogio, made the land untouchable by secular rulers and created the enclave when Ticino went to the Swiss in 1512.

We follow the town through referendums rejecting Swiss annexation, an 1848 petition begging for it, Mussolini's renaming and ornamental gate, its use as a U.S. OSS spy base in World War II, and its long double life with Swiss francs, Swiss phone codes, Swiss firefighters, and a football team in the Swiss league. Then we examine the 2018 ban ...